Major Incident Commander, Principal

ntrs; Pune District; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Northern Trust seeks a Senior Major Incident Commander to lead enterprise-wide incident response, coordinating cross-functional teams and executives to restore services rapidly while minimizing impact.

The role requires deep ITSM expertise, strong leadership under pressure, and a track record of managing major incidents in 24x7 environments.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of IT experience in enterprise environments.
• 9+ years in ITSM and Enterprise Operations.
• 6+ years as Major Incident Commander, Crisis Manager or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of Incident and Problem Management.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end lifecycle of Major Incidents and significant service disruptions.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams and executive stakeholders during crises.
• Drive restoration within service levels and monitor MTTR metrics.
• Develop runbooks and drive continuous improvement for incident response.

Skills

ITSM

Incident Management

Crisis Management

Leadership under pressure

24x7 operations

Tools

ITIL framework

Job description

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world's most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world's most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Senior Major Incident Commander

Job Summary

The Senior Major Incident Commander is a highly experienced IT Service Management (ITSM) professional responsible for leading the enterprise-wide response to critical technology incidents that impact business operations, client services, and regulatory obligations. This role serves as a central command authority during major incidents, coordinating cross-functional technical teams, senior technology leaders, business stakeholders, vendors, and executives to rapidly restore services while minimizing operational, financial, and reputational impact.The successful candidate will demonstrate exceptional leadership under pressure, possess strong technical acumen across infrastructure and application domains, and drive disciplined execution of Major Incident Management processes in a global 24x7 environment. In addition to incident command responsibilities, the role will play a key part in driving operational excellence, resiliency improvements, automation initiatives, trend analysis, problem management integration, and continuous service improvement across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

Major Incident Leadership & Command

• Lead and command the end-to-end lifecycle of Major Incidents, Significant Incidents, and business-critical service disruptions.
• Assume Incident Commander responsibilities during crisis situations, maintaining ownership and accountability until service restoration and business stabilization are achieved.
• Facilitate and direct high-pressure incident bridge calls, ensuring effective coordination across technical support teams, engineering teams, vendors, business stakeholders, and executive leadership.
• Establish clear priorities, drive rapid decision-making, remove obstacles, and ensure timely execution of recovery actions.
• Continuously assess business impact, operational risk, and customer implications throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Ensure timely escalation and engagement of executive leadership, technology management, and external service providers when required.

Service Restoration & Operational Excellence

• Drive the restoration of services within agreed service levels while minimizing business disruption and client impact.
• Ensure adherence to ITIL-based Major Incident Management processes, governance standards, and operational controls.
• Coordinate activities across Infrastructure, Cloud, Network, Security, Database, Middleware, Application, and End User Computing teams.
• Facilitate effective communication throughout the incident lifecycle, providing concise, accurate, and executive-ready updates.

Continuous Improvement & Process Optimization

• Identify opportunities to improve incident response effectiveness, escalation models, communication practices, and operational procedures.
• Develop, document, and maintain standardized runbooks, operating procedures, and incident response playbooks.
• Drive automation, tooling enhancements, and workflow optimization initiatives to reduce Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Restore (MTTR).
• Partner with Problem Management teams to identify recurring issues, root causes, and preventive actions.
• Analyze incident trends and service performance metrics to proactively reduce recurring service disruptions.

Stakeholder Management & Governance

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior technology and business leaders during critical service disruption events.
• Provide executive-level communications, incident summaries, business impact assessments, and post-incident reporting.
• Ensure compliance with technology governance, audit, risk, regulatory, and operational resiliency requirements.
• Participate in crisis management, disaster recovery, cyber recovery, and business continuity exercises.

Required Experience

• 12+ years of overall Information Technology experience , with 9+ years in IT Service Management (ITSM) and Enterprise Operations.
• 6+ years of experience as a Major Incident Commander, Major Incident Manager, or Crisis Manager supporting complex global enterprise environments.
• Proven experience leading high-severity incidents and business-critical outages in a 24x7 mission-critical production environment.
• Strong understanding of Incident Management, Problem Manag