Corporate Vice President - Head of Crisis & Incident Management

Location Designation: Hybrid - 3 days per week 

As part of Risk Management, you'll play a pivotal role in safeguarding New York Life's strategic goals. By analyzing and mitigating potential risks, you contribute to three crucial areas: strengthening the company's defenses, informing sound business decisions, and advancing risk capabilities across the organization. Your expertise empowers informed risk-taking, fostering sustainable growth and protecting the financial security of millions of policy owners.

Job Title: Program Manager, Crisis & Incident Management, Corporate Vice President

Level: MG3

Reporting to: Vice President, Enterprise Resilience

Role Overview:

New York Life is seeking a strategic, execution-oriented Head of Crisis and Incident Management to lead the enterprise-wide crisis and incident management program. This leader will be responsible for building, sustaining, and continuously enhancing crisis capabilities through an all-hazards approach.

The successful candidate will oversee the centralized Crisis and Incident Management team, drive program strategy and execution, and help lead the enterprise through high-impact events, including cyber, physical security, environmental, fraud, public health, technology, and third-party related incidents. The role is accountable for organizational readiness, response coordination, preparedness activities, and monitoring of emerging risks that may impact the company.

This position requires a strong crisis leader who can operate effectively at both the strategic and tactical levels. The leader must be able to engage senior executives, including the Executive Management Committee (EMC / C-suite), translate complex issues into clear decisions, and execute through teams, partners, vendors, and business unit incident leads. The role will champion crisis strategy, lead enterprise simulations, strengthen response discipline, and build risk awareness across the company.

This role carries an explicit on-call requirement and after-hours availability obligation. The Head of Crisis and Incident Management is expected to respond to crises and incidents as they arise, including evenings, weekends, and holidays, as needed. Candidates must be fully prepared for and committed to this before applying.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the enterprise crisis and incident management program, advancing organizational readiness and coordinated response across all hazard types, including natural disasters, cyber incidents, manmade threats, public health emergencies, and third-party events.

• Maintain the crisis management plan, aligning with best practices and evolving risks.

• Provide leadership during major incidents; act as the senior escalation point for complex crises.

• Oversee daily team operations and embedded response leads across business functions.

• Harmonize enterprise and local response plans and escalation procedures.

• Design and deliver enterprise crisis simulations and tabletop exercises involving senior leadership.

• Enhance crisis response strategies across business units and support teams.

• Own the crisis and incident management model and framework, ensuring response teams, including local incident managers and crisis site leaders in the business areas, are aligned to program standards, roles, and expectations.

• Oversee the Resilience Operations Center (ROC) and maintain situational awareness via threat intelligence and internal monitoring tools

• Collaborate with Security, Risk, Technology, Facilities, Legal, Compliance, and Communications.

• Ensure coordinated incident messaging and response strategies.

• Maintain external crisis management partnerships and share cross-sector intelligence.

• Manage vendors and platforms such as Everbridge for crisis communication and coordination.

• Represent the program in governance forums and enterprise-level committees.

• Lead post-incident reviews and integrate lessons into future plans.

• Support reporting requirements for regulators, audits, and the Board. 

What You’ll Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in emergency management, business continuity, or related field preferred.

• 12+ years in crisis management, continuity, incident response, or enterprise risk within large organizations.

• Demonstrated experience leading real-time responses and engaging senior executives.

• Expertise in designing crisis simulations, training, and executive engagement.

• Deep understanding of all-hazards crisis planning and operational resilience.

• Strong leadership, coaching, and decision-making under pressure.

• Excellent communicator with influence across levels, including executive teams.

• Experience collaborating across Security, Facilities, Technology, and Risk functions.

• Ability to synthesize open-source intelligence and threat feeds to inform decisions.

• Regulated industry background (e.g., insurance or financial services) preferred.

• Proficiency using Microsoft Office tools and AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Claude, or similar tools, to support analysis, planning, communications, reporting, and program execution

• Flexibility to respond to crisis events at short notice, including off-hours Preferred Certifications:

• Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), or similar.

• ICS/NIMS training and FEMA EMI certifications (e.g., ICS-100, ICS-200, IS-700, continuity planning, disaster recovery), reflecting proficiency in emergency coordination and response frameworks.

#LI-VL1
#LI-HYBRID

Pay Transparency

Salary Range: $160,000-$228,500 

Overtime eligible: Exempt 

Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes 

Sales bonus eligible: No 

Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual’s experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.

Company Overview 

At New York Life, our 180-year legacy of purpose and integrity fuels our future. As we evolve into a more technology-, data-, and AI-enabled organization, we remain grounded in the values that drive lasting impact. 

Our diverse business portfolio creates opportunities to make a difference across industries and communities—inviting bold thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and purpose-driven innovation. Here, you’ll find the rare balance of long-standing stability and forward momentum, supported by an inclusive team that honors tradition while embracing progress. 

As a Fortune 100 mutual company, we offer a place to grow your skills, contribute to meaningful work, and deliver solutions that matter. Your ideas drive what’s next, and your growth powers it. 

Our Benefits

We provide a full package of benefits for employees – and have unique offerings for a modern workforce, including leave programs, adoption assistance, and student loan repayment programs. Based on feedback from our employees, we continue to refine and add benefits to our offering, so that you can flourish both inside and outside of work. Click here to discover more about our comprehensive benefit options or visit our NYL Benefits Site .

Our Commitment to Inclusion
At New York Life, fostering an inclusive workplace is fundamental to who we are and how we serve our communities. We have a longstanding commitment to creating an environment where individuals can contribute their best and succeed together. This foundation is rooted in our core values of humanity and integrity, ensuring that every employee feels valued and supported. By embracing a broad range of perspectives and experiences, we achieve greater success and fulfill our promise of providing financial security and peace of mind to families across all communities. Click here to learn more about New York Life’s leadership in this space.​

Recognized as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, New York Life is committed to improving local communities through a culture of employee giving and volunteerism, supported by the Foundation . We're proud that due to our mutuality, we operate in the best interests of our policy owners. To learn more about career opportunities at New York Life, please visit the Careers page of .

​Visit our LinkedIn to see how our employees and agents are leading the industry and impacting communities.

Visit our Newsroom to learn more about how our company is constantly evolving to meet our clients' and employees’ needs.

Job Requisition ID: 94332