Head of Crisis Management

F5 Networks•Seattle, WA

25d•$221,600 - $332,400

About The Position

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive. Position Overview The Head of Crisis Management is a high-visibility leadership role responsible for ensuring the organization can respond rapidly, decisively, and effectively to events that threaten business operations, organizational reputation, or stakeholder safety. This leader owns the complete crisis management lifecycle—from preparedness and planning through response, recovery, and post-crisis improvement. As the designated incident commander for enterprise-level events, this role maintains direct access to the SVP and C-Suite for immediate escalation, serving as the calm center of organizational response when crises unfold. With oversight of reputational resilience and integration across legal, HR, and communications functions, this position ensures that crisis response protects not only operational continuity but the organization's most valuable intangible assets.

Requirements

Crisis management expertise: 12+ years of progressive experience in crisis management, emergency management, or organizational response leadership within complex enterprise environments.
Response leadership: 7+ years of leadership experience managing crisis response teams, with demonstrated ability to lead under pressure and make critical decisions with incomplete information.
Proven crisis experience: Demonstrated experience leading organizational response to significant crises including cyber incidents, operational disruptions, reputational events, or natural disasters.
Executive presence: Exceptional executive presence and communication skills with ability to brief C-Suite and board members clearly and confidently during high-stress situations.
Incident command proficiency: Strong experience with Incident Command System (ICS), National Incident Management System (NIMS), or equivalent crisis management frameworks.
Cross-functional influence: Ability to coordinate and influence across Legal, HR, Communications, IT, and business functions without direct authority during crisis situations.
Exercise design expertise: Experience designing and facilitating executive-level crisis exercises that challenge participants and reveal organizational vulnerabilities.
Media and communications savvy: Understanding of crisis communications principles, media dynamics, and reputation management strategies.
Education: Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in emergency management, business administration, or related field preferred.
Certifications: CBCP, CEM, or equivalent crisis/emergency management certification required; ICS certifications and crisis communications training highly desirable.

Responsibilities

Crisis Management Plan ownership: Develop, maintain, and continuously improve the enterprise Crisis Management Plan, framework, and supporting procedures.
Crisis Management Team leadership: Lead the Crisis Management Team (CMT) during declared crises, coordinating cross-functional response and ensuring unified command.
Incident command: Serve as incident commander for enterprise-level events, directing response activities, allocating resources, and making time-critical decisions under pressure.
Executive crisis exercises: Design and execute executive-level crisis exercises including tabletop discussions, functional drills, and full-scale simulations that test decision-making at the highest levels.
Crisis declaration protocols: Establish clear crisis declaration criteria and escalation protocols that enable rapid mobilization without unnecessary false alarms.
Stakeholder notification: Own stakeholder notification processes, tools, and templates ensuring timely, accurate communication to all affected parties during crisis events.
Cross-functional coordination: Coordinate crisis response activities with Legal, Human Resources, Corporate Communications, and other key functions to ensure integrated, consistent response.
External vendor management: Manage relationships with external crisis support vendors including crisis communications firms, forensic investigators, and specialized response consultants.
Post-crisis review: Conduct comprehensive post-crisis reviews, capturing lessons learned and driving improvement actions that strengthen future response capabilities.
24/7 response capability: Maintain around-the-clock crisis response capability with defined on-call rotations, escalation paths, and mobilization procedures.
Reputational resilience oversight: Provide dotted-line oversight of Reputational Resilience domain, ensuring crisis communications and reputation protection are integrated into response plans.
Executive interface: Interface directly with executives and board members during crisis situations, providing situational awareness, decision support, and recommendations.
Command center operations: Manage crisis command center and war room operations, ensuring facilities, technology, and protocols are ready for immediate activation.