Lead Major Incident Manager

GSK•Durham, CA

About The Position

The Digital & Tech Command Centre operates 24x7x365 to protect GSK’s critical sites, applications and services. The Lead Major Incident Manager owns and leads end-to-end responses to Major Incidents (P1) and managed high-priority (P2) incidents, directing resolver teams and subject matter experts toward the fastest possible service restoration. The role works alongside AI-enabled monitoring, detection and triage capabilities and provides accurate, timely, audience-appropriate communications to end users, senior stakeholders and executive leadership. The role assesses incidents for crisis potential, ensures incident records are complete and accurate for downstream Problem Management, and drives continuous improvement in prevention, detection and response, including adoption of AI and automation. As an experienced member of the team, the Lead Major Incident Manager serves as an escalation point, supports less experienced colleagues, handles senior stakeholders’ information requests, supports shift rota management, mentors Major Incident Managers, and leads service-related objectives such as Continual Service Improvement initiatives.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a relevant field such as Computer Science, IT or Engineering, or equivalent experience.
At least 7 years of IT service operations experience in a large, complex, global organisation, including experience in Major Incident Management.
ITIL v4 certification.
Experience leading P1 incidents end to end and directing multiple technical teams and third parties concurrently.
Experience communicating during live incidents to varied audiences, including senior leaders, under time pressure.
Experience working to defined service levels and KPIs, with evidence of improving incident response performance.
Experience of 24x7 shift-based and on-call working, including structured handovers.
Experience with enterprise ITSM tooling and monitoring/alerting platforms; ServiceNow is preferred.
Team-first, collaborative approach to cross-functional working.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a regulated industry, such as pharmaceuticals, life sciences or financial services.
Composure and personal authority under pressure, including the ability to lead specialists who do not report to the role.
Excellent verbal and written communication, with the ability to move between technical detail and business impact.
Strong facilitation and questioning skills to keep incident bridges focused and systematically eliminate hypotheses.
Sound judgement when balancing restoration speed against risk.
Analytical ability to interpret service data and operational metrics to inform improvement.
Strong documentation and process-design capability.
Fluency in written and spoken English.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end management of P1 Major Incidents and managed high-priority P2 incidents, from detection through confirmed service restoration, acting as the single point of control.
Rapidly establish incident impact, urgency and scope; confirm prioritisation; and engage appropriate resolver teams, subject matter experts and vendors.
Lead technical bridges, keep activity focused on restoration, control scope, and ensure hypotheses are systematically tested and eliminated.
Drive and record decisions under pressure, balancing restoration speed against risk.
Drive resolution against agreed major incident targets and escalate when progress stalls or additional authority, resources or vendor commitment are needed.
Own incident communications, providing accurate, timely, audience-appropriate updates to senior leaders and other audiences at agreed intervals.
Translate technical detail into clear business-impact language and set realistic restoration expectations.
Coordinate consistent responses to senior stakeholders’ questions and information requests, and manage follow-up through closure.
Continuously assess incident impact and handling requirements, trigger escalation routes promptly, and provide an initial situational assessment.
Maintain awareness of site criticality, business-critical periods and service dependencies when making escalation decisions.
Ensure incident records—including timelines, impact, actions and causal indicators—are complete and accurate for Problem Management.
Lead or contribute to post-incident reviews and ensure findings, follow-up actions and preventative measures are recorded, owned and tracked to closure.
Identify recurring themes, fragile services and gaps in monitoring, alerting, knowledge or runbooks, and feed them into improvement initiatives.
Contribute to AI, automation and data-driven tooling that reduces time to detect, engage and restore; improve processes and playbooks.
Lead defined service-related objectives, such as Continual Service Improvement initiatives, and track measurable outcomes.
Work a 24x7x365 shift pattern, including public holidays and on-call work as required.
Support shift rota management to help ensure balanced, compliant global coverage, and flag coverage gaps, fatigue and risks to the Senior Major Incident Manager.
Conduct rigorous shift handovers so live incidents, risks and pending actions transfer without loss of context or momentum.
Participate in recovery tests, crisis simulations and major incident rehearsals.
Act as an internal escalation point and support less experienced colleagues.
Support Major Incident Managers’ development through structured feedback and mentoring.
Collaborate across teams and functions to support effective working.