Senior Protective Intelligence Specialist - Digital Exposure Assessment & Reduction

Vanguard; Scottsdale (AZ); Hybrid; USD 125,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Vanguard seeks a Senior Protective Intelligence Specialist to advance threat assessment and mitigation for senior executives globally. The role centers on digital exposure work—drafting assessments, producing executive-facing reduction plans, and managing the PII takedown pipeline—while upholding OSINT standards and coordinating vendor SLAs.

The position emphasizes technical OSINT, adversary-minded analysis, concise briefings for senior leaders, and collaboration with Global Physical Security to

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent experience.
• Minimum five years of related experience, with three years OSINT collection/analysis, digital investigations, or privacy/exposure management supporting security outcomes.
• Demonstrated expertise in data-broker ecosystems, people-search platforms, social media exposure, and PII removal processes.
• Strong technical OSINT skills: advanced search, imagery/geolocation basics, platform-specific collection, and cross-platform identity resolution.
• Experience producing client- or executive-facing deliverables that translate technical findings into plain-language action.
• High ethical standards and discretion when handling sensitive executive and corporate information.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to brief senior leaders clearly and calmly under time pressure.
• Proven ability to think critically and assess incomplete, ambiguous, or conflicting information.

Responsibilities

• Conduct comprehensive online exposure assessments of protectees across multiple open-source streams.
• Produce executive-facing exposure reduction plans with prioritized, practical recommendations, and support executives through privacy-hardening steps.
• Manage the PII takedown pipeline: coordinate with vendor resources, verify removals, track SLA compliance, and re-validate exposure on a defined cadence.
• Maintain exposure ratings across the protectee population per the program’s criteria-based exposure scale, on tier-driven cadence.
• Administer the program’s monitoring and alerting stack: protectee watchlists, query tuning, alert-routing rules, and coverage validation.
• Apply and enforce the program’s established OSINT tradecraft standards: managed attribution, research-account hygiene, collection documentation, and legal/privacy-compliant practices.
• Support investigations with advanced OSINT: subject identification, account attribution, and online-behavior analysis.
• Track exposure-reduction metrics (percentage remediated, takedown SLA compliance) for program reporting.
• Advise on emerging exposure vectors - new platforms, data brokers, AI-enabled aggregation - and adapt product lines accordingly.
• This specialty is the role's primary focus, not an exclusive lane. Every analyst trains to produce the program’s core assessment products to standard, rotates through triage and monitoring coverage, and serves as designated backup for at least one other product line - the team carries no single points of failure.
• Cross-train teammates in your specialty and maintain current proficiency in theirs; participate in the program’s dual-review and after-action practices.

Skills

OSINT analysis

Executive communication

Privacy management

Data broker ecosystems

Geolocation basics

Cross-platform identity resolution

Plain-language briefing

Critical thinking

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Tools

OSINT tooling

Job description

We are seeking a highly capable Senior Protective Intelligence Specialist to support the protection of senior Vanguard executives globally. This role is responsible for supporting the program’s efforts to identify, assess, and mitigate threats to executives and their families, and on building a mature, intelligence-led capability that directly enables executive protection operations. The position’s focus is on digital exposure work: drafting assessments that identify what a threat actor could learn about Vanguard’s senior leaders from open sources, and producing executive-facing reduction plans that translate those findings into practical remediation. The successful candidate will operate the personally identifiable information (PII) takedown pipeline, coordinate vendor tasking and SLA oversight, uphold the program’s established OSINT tradecraft standards, and administer the monitoring stack that feeds daily triage. This role suits a deeply technical OSINT practitioner who thinks like an adversary, documents like an auditor, and can brief digital exposure findings with clarity, discretion, and practical next steps for senior leaders. This role strengthens Global Physical Security’s ability to reduce executive exposure before it becomes a protective intelligence concern, combining technical discovery, remediation coordination, and executive-ready communication.

Digital Exposure Assessment & Reduction

• Conduct comprehensive online exposure assessments of protectees across multiple open-source streams.
• Produce executive-facing exposure reduction plans with prioritized, practical recommendations, and support executives through privacy-hardening steps.
• Manage the PII takedown pipeline: coordinate with vendor resources, verify removals, track SLA compliance, and re-validate exposure on a defined cadence.
• Maintain exposure ratings across the protectee population per the program’s criteria-based exposure scale, on tier-driven cadence.

Monitoring Stack & Tradecraft

• Administer the program’s monitoring and alerting stack: protectee watchlists, query tuning, alert-routing rules, and coverage validation.
• Apply and enforce the program’s established OSINT tradecraft standards: managed attribution, research-account hygiene, collection documentation, and legal/privacy-compliant practices.
• Support investigations with advanced OSINT: subject identification, account attribution, and online-behavior analysis.

Program Contribution

• Track exposure-reduction metrics (percentage remediated, takedown SLA compliance) for program reporting.
• Advise on emerging exposure vectors - new platforms, data brokers, AI-enabled aggregation - and adapt product lines accordingly.

Team Model - Primary Focus, Universal Capability

• This specialty is the role's primary focus, not an exclusive lane. Every analyst trains to produce the program’s core assessment products to standard, rotates through triage and monitoring coverage, and serves as designated backup for at least one other product line - the team carries no single points of failure.
• Cross-train teammates in your specialty and maintain current proficiency in theirs; participate in the program’s dual-review and after-action practices.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent experience.
• Minimum five years of related experience, with three years OSINT collection/analysis, digital investigations, or privacy/exposure management supporting security outcomes.
• Demonstrated expertise in data-broker ecosystems, people-search platforms, social media exposure, and PII removal processes.
• Strong technical OSINT skills: advanced search, imagery/geolocation basics, platform-specific collection, and cross-platform identity resolution.
• Experience producing client- or executive-facing deliverables that translate technical findings into plain-language action.
• High ethical standards and discretion when handling sensitive executive and corporate information.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to brief senior leaders clearly and calmly under time pressure.
• Proven ability to think critically and assess incomplete, ambiguous, or conflicting information.

Preferred Qualifications

• OSINT certification (e.g., C|OSINT, SANS SEC487) or equivalent demonstrated tradecraft.
• Experience managing security or privacy vendors against SLAs.
• Familiarity with executive protection or protective intelligence programs.
• Scripting or automation skills or collection and monitoring efficiency.

Special Factors

• Participation in an on-call rotation for after-hours escalation support.

Sponsorship

Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.

About Vanguard

At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission - we're on a mission. To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.