Senior Director, Operations & Business Continuity

Company Description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at . Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook , Instagram , X and YouTube.

Job Description

The Senior Director, Enterprise Resilience & Service Continuity is a senior leadership role accountable for ensuring the continuous availability and recoverability of the company’s most critical business services. This role owns end‑to‑end business service availability, spanning technology, people, processes, and third‑party dependencies, and serves as the enterprise authority during major operational disruptions.

This leader is responsible not only for keeping technology running 24x7, but for ensuring the business can continue to operate when disruptions occur—whether caused by technology failures, cyber incidents, third‑party outages, or external events. When disruptions exceed tolerance, this role is accountable for directing enterprise recovery efforts and restoring business operations within approved timeframes.

The role reports to the VP of Infrastructure, Architecture & Innovation and operates as a peer to senior leaders in cybersecurity, infrastructure engineering, and IT service management.

Responsibilities:

Enterprise Business Service Availability

• Own enterprise accountability for the availability and recoverability of Tier 1 and Tier 2 business services.

• Partner with business leaders to define and maintain service recovery objectives aligned to business risk tolerance.

• Ensure technology, operational processes, and manual workarounds collectively support approved recovery targets.

• Proactively identify and escalate risks that threaten business service availability, even when systems appear operational.

• Lead troubleshooting and resolution efforts for complex network incidents, outages, and performance issues.

• Direct the 24/7 Command Center operations, ensuring real-time monitoring and rapid response to network events and incidents.

• Develop and maintain operational dashboards, reporting tools, and escalation procedures.

• Collaborate with IT, security, and business units to coordinate incident response and communications.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance detection, response, and recovery capabilities.

Enterprise Resilience & Business Continuity

• Lead the design, execution, and continuous improvement of enterprise resilience, disaster recovery, and business continuity capabilities.

• Ensure business continuity plans are actionable, tested, and aligned to real operational dependencies.

• Direct enterprise‑wide resilience exercises, including executive‑level and scenario‑based simulations (e.g., cyber events, supply chain disruption, facility loss). Ensure Sr. Leadership awareness and follow-up on any gaps found.

• Provide regular executive and board‑level reporting on resilience posture, gaps, and risk exposure.

Command Center & Incident Leadership

• Own 24x7 enterprise command center operations, including monitoring, escalation, and response coordination including Crisis Management when appropriate.

• Serve as the Enterprise Incident Commander during major operational disruptions.

• Direct cross‑functional response efforts across IT, cybersecurity, business operations, communications, legal, and external partners.

• Ensure clear, timely, and accurate communication to executive leadership during incidents.

Crisis Management & Business Recovery

• Lead enterprise response and recovery efforts for major outages, cyber incidents, and business disruptions.

• Ensure rapid restoration of critical business processes, not just technical components.

• Maintain authority to mobilize resources, override standard processes, and escalate decisions to protect the business.

• Conduct post‑incident reviews focused on business impact, root cause, and systemic improvement.

Risk, Compliance & External Accountability

• Ensure enterprise compliance with regulatory, contractual, and industry requirements related to availability, resilience, and continuity.

• Represent the organization during regulatory reviews, audits, and external incident assessments.

• Partner with Risk, Compliance, and Security leaders to align operational resilience with appropriate levels of risk management.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent education and 15+ years of experience.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in enterprise operations, infrastructure, service management, or resilience leadership.
• Build and lead high‑performing teams across command center operations, service availability, and resilience planning.
• Establish clear performance metrics tied to business outcomes, not just technical measures.
• Influence senior leaders and business stakeholders to embed resilience into operational and technology decision‑making.
• Drive a culture of accountability, preparedness, and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise‑scale incident response and business recovery.
• Proven ability to operate with authority and credibility during high‑pressure, executive‑level situations.
• Strong understanding of operational resilience, disaster recovery, business continuity, and enterprise risk.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and executive presence.

Preferred:

• Experience with cloud networking, cybersecurity, and automation tools.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., ITIL, PMP, CISSP, resilience or continuity certifications).
• Master’s degree and work experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

Additional Information

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of thisposting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location,and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​

• This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs. ​

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission,incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless anduntil paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

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