Tape Media Operations Program Manager

Visa•Ashburn, VA

10d•Onsite

About The Position

The Tape Media Operations Program Manager is accountable for the end-to-end governance, operational integrity, and audit readiness of enterprise tape media services supporting both IBM (mainframe) and Open Systems environments within the data center. This role owns the policies, processes, controls, and vendor coordination required to ensure secure, compliant, and reliable tape-based data protection services in support of business continuity, regulatory obligations, and enterprise risk management objectives. In highly regulated environments, tape media remains a critical system of record for long-term data retention, legal hold, and disaster recovery. This role provides a single accountable owner for tape operations, ensuring adherence to finance-industry compliance requirements, maintaining provable chain-of-custody and inventory accuracy, and sustaining continuous audit readiness across internal and external examinations. Success in this role directly reduces operational risk, audit exposure, and recovery failures while ensuring the organization meets regulatory, contractual, and business resiliency commitments. This role provides end-to-end accountability for tape media operations and associated controls, serving as the single point of ownership for tape services while leading cross-functional execution without direct people management. The position is designed to establish clear operational accountability in a centralized tape environment where execution is shared with data center teams and vendors, with primary responsibility for audit readiness, risk management, and vendor oversight.

Requirements

2 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD, or PhD)

Nice To Haves

3 or more years of work experience with a Bachelor’s Degree or more than 2 years of work experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD)

Responsibilities

Serve as the single accountable owner for enterprise tape media operations supporting IBM (mainframe) and Open Systems environments.
Define, maintain, and enforce operational standards, procedures, and controls governing tape handling, retention, recovery, and destruction.
Ensure consistent, reliable execution of tape services aligned with business continuity and disaster recovery objectives.
Own tape media compliance posture for finance-industry regulatory requirements, including data retention, chain-of-custody, and audit traceability.
Maintain continuous audit readiness, including complete and accurate documentation, inventories, and evidence artifacts for internal and external audits.
Identify operational, security, and compliance risks associated with tape media and implement mitigation strategies.
Lead responses to audit findings, control gaps, and remediation plans related to tape operations.
Act as the primary operational interface with tape vendors and service providers (e.g., IBM, off-site storage providers).
Manage vendor incidents, escalations, and root cause analysis to resolution.
Ensure vendor services meet contractual, compliance, and operational expectations.
Lead operational response for tape-related incidents impacting backup, restore, recovery, or audit obligations.
Coordinate cross-functional teams (data center operations, storage engineering, security, compliance) to resolve incidents and prevent recurrence.
Ensure accurate incident reporting, post-incident documentation, and corrective actions.
Maintain authoritative tape media inventory, location tracking, and lifecycle status.
Ensure all tape media activities are fully documented and traceable.
Continuously evaluate and improve tape operations processes to reduce risk, improve reliability, and support regulatory changes.
Establish operational metrics and reporting to demonstrate service health, audit readiness, and risk posture.
Drive process standardization and operational maturity across tape services.
Partner with stakeholders to align tape strategy with evolving data protection, security, and regulatory requirements.