Principal - Major Incident Commander

Principal - Major Incident Commander

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.

Job Title Major Incident Commander (Production Assurance Operations)

Role Summary

The Major Incident Commander (MIC) is an Accountable leader who is responsible for directing the end‑to‑end response to high‑severity, business‑impacting technology incidents. The role owns command, coordination, driving decision‑making, and executive communication during major incidents, ensuring rapid service restoration, minimal business impact, and disciplined post‑incident learning.

The MIC does not fix systems directly. Instead, they lead through influence, orchestrating cross‑functional technical teams (SRE, Infrastructure, Application, Network, Cloud, Security, Vendors) under intense time pressure while maintaining clear situational awareness and communication.

Key Responsibilities

1. Incident Command & Leadership

• Act as the designated Incident Commander for all declared Major / Severity‑1 / Priority‑1 incidents.
• Rapidly assess impact, scope, and severity; formally declare major incidents and activate response protocols.
• Establish and maintain clear command structure, roles, and accountability throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Drive incident progression from detection through mitigation, restoration, and closure.

2. Coordination & Execution

• Lead and control incident bridges / war rooms, ensuring focus, discipline, and forward momentum.
• Mobilize the right technical resources across infrastructure, applications, cloud, network, security, and third‑party vendors.
• Prevent duplicated effort, conflicting actions, and unmanaged escalations.
• Make time‑critical decisions (rollback, failover, isolation, degradation) based on technical input and business risk.
• Drive Incident Managers and Incident analysts for fire calling, stakeholder management, bridge and communication management

3. Stakeholder & Executive Communication

• Own all major incident communications end‑to‑end
• Translate complex technical situations into clear business impact statements for senior leadership.
• Have straight line communication with the CXO group on the impact, progress and status
• Provide structured, time‑bound updates to executives, service owners, and business stakeholders.
• Ensure consistency across incident bridges, leadership updates, and customer‑facing communications where applicable.

4. Governance, Process & Control

• Ensure incidents are managed in line with ITIL / SRE / internal Major Incident Management frameworks.
• Enforce escalation paths, decision rights, and incident classification standards.
• Coordinate emergency changes and risk acceptance where required during live incidents.
• Maintain accurate incident timelines, actions, and decisions for audit and review.

5. Post‑Incident Review & Continuous Improvement

• Integrate with post‑incident reviews (RCAs) for all major incidents.
• Contribute to high‑quality root cause analysis using structured methods (5 Whys, Fishbone, KT, FMEA).
• Flash system weaknesses, recurring patterns, and resilience gaps.

Operating Model

• Part of a Production Assurance/ Incident Management Operations function.
• Participation in on‑call or major incident rotation, including off‑hours and weekends.
• Works closely with Service Owners, Engineering, Architecture, Security, and Vendor Management teams

Required Experience & Skills

Core Experience

• Overall 18+ years of IT-BFSI Delivery
• Proven experience acting as Incident Commander or Major Incident Lead in complex, 24×7 enterprise environments.
• 10+ years in IT Operations, SRE, Incident Management, or Production Support roles.
• Hands‑on exposure to mission‑critical systems (cloud, infrastructure, applications, networks, identity, databases).

Technical & Operational Knowledge

• Strong understanding of modern distributed systems and failure modes.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS / Azure / GCP) and cloud‑native architectures.
• Working knowledge of monitoring, alerting, and observability tools (e.g., Dynatrace, Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana).
• Experience with ITSM tools (ServiceNow, Remedy, Jira Service Management, or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of Custody, Trade and Payments Operations will be an added advantage

Leadership & Behavioral Competencies

• Demonstrates strong situational control and composure during high-pressure, high-demand incidents.
• Leads decisively through effective delegation of authority and accountability.
• Exhibits assertive leadership by rapidly taking ownership and directing incident response actions.
• Drives war room operations with clear command, structured governance, and disciplined execution.
• Communicates clear, concise, and outcome-focused deliverables with confidence to senior executives, technical teams, and business service delivery leaders.

Certifications (Preferred, Not Mandatory)

• ITIL v4
• SRE or Cloud certifications
• Incident Command / Crisis Management training

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at MyHRHelp@ntrs.com, or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.

About Our Bangalore Office

The Northern Trust Bangalore office, established in 2005, is home to over 5,600 employees.  In this stunning office space, we offer fantastic amenities which include our Arrival Hub - Jungle, the GameZone, and the Employee Experience Zone that appeal to both clients and employees. Learn more.

Experience Level

Senior Level