Description
The Digital & Tech Command Centre operates 24x7x365 to protect GSK's critical sites, applications, and services. The Senior Major Incident Manager role owns and leads the end-to-end response to Major Incidents (P1) and managed high-priority (P2) incidents.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the end-to-end management of Major Incidents (P1) and managed high-priority (P2) incidents, from detection through to confirmed service restoration.
- Rapidly establish impact, urgency, and scope, confirm correct prioritization, and drive immediate engagement of the right resolver teams, subject matter experts, and vendors.
- Lead technical bridges with authority, keeping activity focused on restoration, controlling scope, and ensuring hypotheses are tested and eliminated systematically.
- Drive and record decisions under pressure – balancing speed of restoration against risk.
- Own incident communications, producing accurate, timely, and audience-appropriate updates, including for senior leaders, at agreed intervals.
- Translate complex technical detail into clear business impact language, setting realistic expectations on restoration.
- Act as an escalation point for senior stakeholders' questions and requests for information, coordinating accurate, consistent responses across resolver teams and owning follow-up through to closure.
- Continuously assess live incidents for impact, applying criteria to determine appropriate handling.
- Secure the quality, completeness, and accuracy of the incident record – timeline, impact, actions taken, and causal indicators – so that Problem Management can be effective.
- Lead or contribute to post-incident reviews, ensuring findings, follow-up actions, and preventative measures are captured, owned, and tracked to closure.
- Identify recurring themes, fragile services, and gaps in monitoring, alerting, knowledge, or runbooks, and feed these into improvement initiatives.
- Operate as part of a 24x7x365 shift pattern, including public holiday and on-call working as required.
Requirements
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science, IT, or Engineering), or equivalent experience.
- 7+ years in IT service operations within a large, complex, global organization, including time in a Major Incident Management role.
- ITIL v4 certification is required.
- Experience with leading P1 incidents end-to-end, directing multiple technical teams and third parties concurrently.
- Experience communicating during live incidents to a range of audiences, including senior leaders, under time pressure.
- Experience working to defined service levels and KPIs, with evidence of improving incident response performance.
Nice to Have
- Composure and personal authority under pressure, with the ability to lead specialists who do not report to the role.
- Excellent verbal and written communication, moving fluently between technical detail and business impact.
- Strong facilitation and questioning skills to keep a bridge focused and eliminate hypotheses systematically.
- Sound judgment in balancing speed of restoration against risk.
- Analytical mindset, interpreting service data and operational metrics to inform improvement.
- Strong documentation and process-design capability.
- Fluency in written and spoken English