Penetration Testing Program Governance & Vendor Strategy Manager

Fairygodboss; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

J.P. Morgan is seeking a Penetration Testing Vendor Management Lead to own delivery excellence across third-party testing programs. This governance and commercial role supports program-level oversight, working with Penetration Testing and wider governance forums.

You will bridge product, engineering, procurement and finance, coaching a small team and driving KPI-driven reporting, issue resolution, and continuous improvement without performing hands-on testing.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in vendor management and program oversight in a large organization.
• Ability to produce crisp, executive-ready status reporting.
• Strong understanding of penetration testing delivery models and offensive security.

Responsibilities

• Own vendor management for penetration testing delivery, including performance management, issue resolution, and continuous improvement.
• Establish and maintain program-wide delivery standards and ensure vendor adherence.
• Run vendor governance cadences with KPI-driven reporting, action tracking, and escalation management.
• Own program management oversight of Penetration Testing strategy execution, including maintaining delivery roadmaps and plans, tracking milestones and dependencies, and driving disciplined status reporting.
• Serve as the primary link between Penetration Testing and wider strategic functions and governance forums to align priorities, reporting, and cross-team initiatives.
• Coordinate with partner teams (e.g., product/engineering, procurement, finance) to support governance and program execution.
• Lead a small team by setting direction, allocating work, removing blockers, and building team capability through ongoing coaching and feedback.

Skills

Vendor management

Program oversight

Governance

KPI reporting

Stakeholder management

People management

Offensive security

Executive communication

Job description

This role, within the Penetration Testing team, will be responsible for vendor management for third-party penetration testing delivery while owning the delivery excellence agenda across the program-governance, performance, and quality assurance. The role is the primary coordination point between Penetration Testing and the wider strategic functions and governance forums, supporting program-level governance oversight and alignment to Penetration Testing strategy. This is not a hands-on penetration testing role; it is a service delivery, governance, and commercial role with a strong technical and strategy focus. Success in this role requires sufficient technical depth to help shape Pen Test delivery and QA strategy, challenge approaches, and improve consistency of outcomes across vendors and stakeholder groups.

An applicant from a security consulting firm or a financial services background will have a distinct advantage.

Job Responsibilities

The role's responsibilities include

• Own vendor management for penetration testing delivery, including performance management, issue resolution, and continuous improvement.
• Establish and maintain program-wide delivery standards (e.g., testing approach expectations, reporting structure, evidence quality, reproducibility, and retest criteria) and ensure vendor adherence.
• Run vendor governance cadences and maintain KPI-driven reporting, action tracking, and escalation management.
• Own program management oversight of Penetration Testing strategy execution, including maintaining delivery roadmaps and plans (e.g., Gantt/roadmap views), tracking milestones and dependencies, and driving disciplined status reporting.
• Serve as the primary link between Penetration Testing and wider strategic functions and governance forums to align priorities, reporting, and cross-team initiatives.
• Coordinate with partner teams (e.g., product/engineering, procurement, finance) to support governance and program execution.
• Lead a small team by setting direction, allocating work, removing blockers, and building team capability through ongoing coaching and feedback

Required qualifications, capabilities and skills

Required skills include:

• Proven experience in vendor management and program oversight in a large, matrixed organization.
• Demonstrable program management capability (roadmap planning, milestone tracking, dependency management, RAID-style risk/issue tracking) with the ability to produce crisp, executive-ready status reporting.
• Strong understanding of penetration testing delivery models and the offensive security space (not hands-on execution, but able to challenge, translate, and steer), including the ability to identify gaps in methodology, inconsistent severity, and insufficient evidence/impact articulation.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to drive decisions and resolve conflicts across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience running governance forums with clear KPI reporting and action follow-through.
• Strong organizational skills with meticulous attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear executive-ready updates and present effectively to senior stakeholders.
• Experience in people management, including leading and developing a small team.

Preferred qualifications

Preferred experience includes

• Experience supporting vendor commercial governance (renewals, rate cards, invoicing) and/or sourcing activities (RFP support).
• Experience coordinating third-party security testing in regulated environments.
• Technical background in offensive security, with prior hands-on testing experience, enabling informed oversight while not being a primary execution role.
• Experience running multi-workstream delivery governance (e.g., steering committees, cross-team milestone management, and outcome tracking across vendors/partner teams).

ABOUT US

J.P. Morgan is a global leader in financial services, providing strategic advice and products to the world's most prominent corporations, governments, wealthy individuals and institutional investors. Our first-class business in a first-class way approach to serving clients drives everything we do. We strive to build trusted, long-term partnerships to help our clients achieve their business objectives.

We recognize that our people are our strength and the diverse talents they bring to our global workforce are directly linked to our success.

We are an equal opportunity employer and place a high value on diversity and inclusion at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute, including race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital or veteran status, pregnancy or disability, or any other basis protected under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for applicants' and employees' religious practices and beliefs, as well as mental health or physical disability needs. Visit our FAQs for more information about requesting an accommodation.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Our professionals in our Corporate Functions cover a diverse range of areas from finance and risk to human resources and marketing. Our corporate teams are an essential part of our company, ensuring that we're setting our businesses, clients, customers and employees up for success.