Head of Incident Management & Operational Resilience

FTSE Russell | Director
Location: Fort Mill

FTSE Russell is seeking a senior, experienced Head of Incident Management & Operational Resilience to lead our operational incident and client complaints oversight capability and further strengthen the resilience of our global index business.

This is a Director‑level (GG15) role, managing a high‑performing team of 6–8 professionals, and reporting to the Head of Regulatory, Risk & Controls. The role plays a critical leadership position at the intersection of operations, risk, governance, client outcomes and regulatory expectations!

The Role

You will be accountable for leading FTSE Russell’s operational incident management, client complaints oversight, and operational resilience activities, ensuring issues are identified, managed, escalated and learned from in a consistent, transparent and well‑governed manner.

The role focuses primarily on operational incidents, while maintaining strong oversight and partnership with technology incident management teams (who sit outside of this reporting line), ensuring joined‑up handling of complex, cross‑functional issues.

You will act as a senior escalation point during high‑impact incidents or complaints, provide clear leadership under pressure, and ensure outcomes meet both client and regulatory expectations.

Key Responsibilities

Incident Management (Operational)

• Lead the end‑to‑end management of operational incidents, from identification and triage through resolution, closure and post‑incident review.

• Coordinate cross‑functional response across Operations, Product, Data, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Legal and Sales.

• Ensure incidents are documented, escalated and reported accurately and in a regulator‑ready manner.

• Drive high‑quality root cause analysis and ensure remediation actions are tracked to completion.

Client Complaints Oversight

• Provide senior first‑line oversight of client complaints, including benchmark‑related complaints, in line with the FTSE Russell Complaints‑Handling framework.

• Partner closely with Client Experience teams (who operate the complaints process) to ensure appropriate escalation, risk assessment and linkage to underlying incidents or control issues.

• Act as a critical issue point for complex, sensitive or high‑risk complaints and support governance‑level determinations or appeals where required.

• Ensure complaint themes and trends feed into incident learning, operational resilience improvements and governance reporting.

Operational Resilience & Crisis Readiness

• Strengthen FTSE Russell’s ability to anticipate, respond to, recover from and learn from disruption.

• Embed lessons from incidents and complaints into resilience planning, scenarios, playbooks and continuous improvement activities.

• Support crisis management and resilience exercises, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations and business priorities.

Governance, MI & Stakeholder Engagement

• Own incident and complaints MI, including trend analysis, repeat drivers, timeliness and remediation effectiveness.

• Present clear, concise insights to senior management and governance forums.

• Support regulatory engagement, audits and reviews relating to incidents, complaints and resilience.

People Leadership

• Lead, develop and motivate a team of incident and resilience professionals.

• Build capability, consistency and confidence across the organisation through training, guidance and clear operating rhythms.

What We’re Looking For

Essential

• Extensive experience leading incident management, operational resilience and/or crisis management in a regulated financial services, data or market infrastructure environment.

• Proven ability to lead complex, high‑pressure situations with senior collaborators.

• Strong understanding of governance, regulatory expectations and audit‑ready documentation.

• Continuous improvement mindset, embedding lessons learned, metrics and feedback loops into BAU

• Demonstrated people leadership experience, with a track record of building high‑performing teams.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence at executive level.

Desirable

• Experience overseeing or working closely with formal client complaints frameworks.

• Exposure to index, benchmark, data, analytics or similar high‑integrity service environments.

• Strong analytical skills, including incident and complaints trend analysis and dashboarding.

Career Stage: