Director, Emergency Management & Business Continuity

St.-John; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

St. John’s University seeks a Director of Emergency Management and Continuity to lead enterprise-wide resilience across all campuses, domestic and international.

You will coordinate crisis planning, travel risk management, and continuity programs, exercising preparedness with stakeholders, and guiding incident response. Strong leadership and communications are essential for governing safety and ensuring mission continuity.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated expertise in crisis and continuity planning.
• Familiarity with FEMA, NIMS, HSEEP, and regulatory frameworks.
• Familiarity with travel risk management frameworks and traveler tracking.
• Completion of ICs courses IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, IS-800.
• Valid driver’s license (or ability to obtain NY license).
• Strong communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead committees to develop and maintain emergency and continuity plans.
• Conduct risk assessments and hazard mitigation planning.
• Create and update the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP).
• Tailor EOPs for each campus, including international locations.
• Ensure regulatory and accessibility compliance.
• Coordinate continuity plans with departments and schools.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Risk Management and international campus leaders.
• Establish travel risk governance and travel insurance standards.
• Oversee travel security program and traveler communications.
• Design and deliver HSEEP-compliant training and exercises.
• Maintain a multi-year training and exercise calendar.
• Develop outreach programs for students, faculty, and staff.
• Build partnerships with NYC Emergency Management and universities.
• Develop campus-wide education and outreach on preparedness.
• Foster shared responsibility and proactive risk reduction.
• Serve as standards champion for institutional resilience.
• Identify risk reduction strategies and track corrective actions.
• Integrate continuity into emergency response planning.
• Implement travel risk monitoring with centralized visibility.
• Act as Incident Commander during EOC activations.
• Lead emergency response setup and international operations.
• Establish partnerships with peer institutions and private sector.

Skills

Crisis planning

Continuity planning

Regulatory frameworks

Travel risk management

IS 100/200/700/800

Driver's license

Communication & collaboration

Multi-project management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Emergency Management/Public Administration/Business

Job description

The Director of Emergency Management and Continuity at St. John’s University is a subject matter expert in all aspects of emergency management—including planning, prevention, response, and recovery—as well as business and operational continuity. Using an all-hazards approach, the Director identifies and mitigates risks that could potentially disrupt university operations at any of St. John’s locations, domestic or international.

With a strong operational focus, the Director ensures that emergency management plans are actionable, widely understood, appropriately resourced, and routinely exercised. The goal is to protect lives, property, and university assets while building a resilient institution capable of operating through and recovering from crises.

This position also authors and manages the university’s enterprise continuity program, coordinating across schools, departments, and global locations. The Director ensures all continuity plans remain current and effective in supporting St. John’s through both expected and unexpected disruptions. This role plays a vital part in ensuring university governance, operations, and recovery can continue in the face of man-made or natural incidents.

An effective communicator, strategic thinker, and skilled project manager, the Director is responsive in emergencies, anticipates risk, closes capability gaps, and fosters a culture of preparedness. This position also collaborates closely with the University’s Operations to develop and execute Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP)-compliant exercises. The role carries 24/7 emergency responsibilities.

Policies, Plans, and Procedures – 40%

• Lead stakeholder committees to develop and maintain emergency and continuity plans.
• Conduct multi-disciplinary risk assessments and hazard mitigation planning.
• Create, maintain and update the university-wide Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP).
• Tailor Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) for each campus or center, including international locations.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory and accessibility standards.
• Collaborate with departments and schools to maintain continuity plans that prioritize core missions (teaching, research, housing, and public service).
• Coordinate with Enterprise Risk Management and international campus leaders.
• Establish and maintain a University-wide travel security governance framework that sets institutional standards for University-sponsored travel risk management, including decision authority, risk-tolerance thresholds by destination, and approval and documentation expectations applicable to faculty, staff, and students.
• Oversee an operational travel security program that provides a single intake and tracking mechanism for University-sponsored travel, conducts trip-level risk reviews, delivers pre-departure briefings for elevated-risk locations, and coordinates active traveler communications and emergency response.
• Establish a mandatory travel insurance standard covering emergency medical treatment, medical evacuation, trip disruption, and repatriation; enforce verification as part of the travel registration workflow.

Exercises and Outreach – 20%

• Design and deliver HSEEP-compliant training, exercises, and public preparedness campaigns.
• Maintain a multi-year training and exercise calendar.
• Develop outreach programs for students, faculty, and staff on preparedness and resilience.
• Build partnerships with NYC Emergency Management, regional universities, and professional associations.

Community Education and Engagement – 15%

• Develop and lead campus-wide education and outreach initiatives to promote understanding of emergency management tools, plans, and individual preparedness responsibilities.
• Deliver engaging, accessible content to students, faculty, and staff through workshops, briefings, printed materials, digital campaigns, and orientation programs.
• Ensure emergency plans and continuity tools are not only developed but also understood and embraced by the campus community.
• Partner with Student Affairs, Residence Life, Human Resources, and academic units to embed preparedness education into community life and institutional culture.
• Foster a culture of shared responsibility and proactive risk reduction.

Strategy and Continuous Improvement – 15%

• Serve as a standards champion across departments to build institutional resilience.
• Identify and prioritize innovative risk reduction strategies.
• Track corrective actions and incorporate lessons learned from exercises and incidents.
• Advance the integration of continuity into emergency response planning.
• Implement a travel risk intelligence and monitoring capability with centralized visibility into active University-sponsored trips, automated country/city risk ratings, alerts for emerging global incidents, and direct support for emergency response coordination, with redundant access for Public Safety and program administrators.

Emergency Response – 5%

• Serve as Incident Commander orassistin ICs role assignment during EOC activations.
• Lead operational setup and readiness for all potential EOC sites.
• Deploy to incident locations as needed and support international response operations.

Partnership Development – 5%

• Establish partnerships with peer institutions andprivate-sectorstakeholders.
• Facilitate integration, liaison, and best-practice sharing across continuity communities.

Required Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Emergency Management, Public Administration, Business, or related field.

Required Experience:

• Minimum of 7 years of emergency management/continuity or program management experience; or 5–7 years with a related graduate degree.
• Minimum of 5 years in a supervisory capacity.

Required Skills and Certifications:

• Demonstrated expertise in crisis and continuity planning.
• Familiarity with FEMA, NIMS, HSEEP, and regulatory frameworks.
• Familiarity with travel risk management frameworks, including country/destination risk ratings, traveler tracking platforms, pre-departure briefings, and institutional duty-of-care obligations.
• Completion of ICs courses: IS 100, IS 200, IS 700, IS 800.
• Valid driver’s license (or ability to obtain a NY license).
• Strong communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced, high-stakesenvironment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s degree (MBA or related field).
• Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), CBCP, or FEMA MEP certification.
• Experience in higher education or global enterprise setting.
• Strong data management and information security awareness.

Institutional Impact

• The Director strengthens university-wide resilience and governance during emergencies.
• Leads major event planning support and contributes to unplanned incident response.
• Manages a significant Public Safety budget and partners with all university departments.

Authority and Decision-Making

• Develops and advises on emergency and continuity policies.
• Makes real-time decisions during crises, including priority-setting and resource deployment.
• Advises senior university leadership on readiness, response, and recovery strategies.

Key Relationships

• Collaborates with university leaders, Public Safety personnel, faculty, and operations teams.
• Serves as liaison to external emergency agencies and peer institutions.
• Represents Public Safety in university-wide meetings on risk, continuity, and compliance.

Direct Reports

• One Manager (to be hired)