Chair of Industry & Operators Council (IOC Chair)

Position: Industry & Operators Council Chair (IOC Chair) — The Global Centre for Risk & Innovation (GCRI) / Nexus Governance System
Type: Operational realism, continuity, and implementation-feasibility governance leadership role (non-executive; strictly non-executing)
Board: Council leaders are considered for Board nomination after joining and serving in good standing
Location: International (distributed, hybrid)
Term: 3 Years
Time commitment: Typically 10–24 hours per month (build-year cadence; surge periods around quarterly proof cycles, drills, and escalations)
Apply here: https://therisk.global/work/job/chair-of-industry-operators-council-ioc-chair/

Context and Purpose

Risk governance fails when it is technically elegant but operationally untrue. Decisions that ignore infrastructure constraints, operational dependencies, outage realities, supply chains, and continuity requirements become performative—and they break during stress.

The Industry & Operators Council Chair (IOC Chair) is the operational feasibility and continuity anchor of the Nexus governance system. The role convenes operators and industry leaders (critical infrastructure, utilities, finance operations, logistics, telecom, health systems, cloud/compute, and other essential services) to ensure governance outputs are operationally feasible, stress-tested, and designed for real-world constraints—while preserving strict non-execution firewalls. This is governance leadership, not execution: the IOC Chair does not steer procurement, select vendors, broker deals, underwrite, place, custody, or imply endorsement.

Key Responsibilities

• Ensure dockets and standards reflect real constraints: dependencies, lead times, staffing, supply chains, maintenance windows, outages, and operator duty-of-care realities.
• Identify infeasible assumptions early and route corrections before outputs are approved or published.
• Ensure “feasibility conditions” are explicit: what must be true for an output to work in practice.
• Maintain a continuity posture: drills, tabletop exercises, and stress tests that reveal where governance outputs would fail under surge, cyber incidents, infrastructure outages, or cascading risk.
• Develop and curate failure modes and mitigation playbooks relevant to operator environments.
• Ensure lessons learned are captured, corrected, and fed back into standards and templates.
• Define operator-facing evidence requirements: what telemetry and signals are needed for decision validity, monitoring, and auditability.
• Ensure evidence packs and outputs remain usable for operators and finance interfaces without turning governance into execution or operational command.
• Ensure operator participation is safe and compliant: controlled sessions where needed, least-privilege distribution, and disciplined external messaging.
• Prevent disclosure of sensitive operational vulnerabilities in public outputs; ensure public-safe summaries protect critical infrastructure.
• Enforce neutrality and safe convening across competitors: prevent collusion dynamics, procurement steering, vendor favoritism, or implied preferred solutions.
• Ensure governance outputs remain vendor-neutral and interoperable, not product-specific.
• Build a credible operator participation pipeline across sectors and geographies, including representation from high-risk contexts and under-resourced systems.
• Improve seat completeness and participation health for operator and industry roles while maintaining rigorous conflict controls.

Compensation, Remuneration, and Expenses

• Governance authority is not paid. Compensation is never linked to votes, approvals, recognition decisions, enforcement actions, or outcomes. No success fees and no pay-to-influence dynamics.
• Operational workload may be compensated (where permitted). If build-year operational governance work is required (e.g., continuity drills, failure-mode libraries, operator evidence templates), compensation may be provided only for defined operational services—scoped, deliverable-based, independently approved, and auditable.
• Expenses may be reimbursed. Reasonable, documented, pre-approved out-of-pocket expenses necessary to perform the role may be reimbursed in accordance with policy and handling requirements.
• Standing and independence apply. Continued service depends on good standing, disclosure compliance, and independence consistent with integrity requirements.

Opportunities for Leaders to Join

• Shape the operational reality layer that determines whether governance outputs actually work under stress.
• Build continuity and drill discipline into a global governance system—turning “resilience” into tested practice.
• Convene operators across sectors and regions into a disciplined forum that improves standards, evidence design, and real-world feasibility.
• Strong performance positions leaders for broader chairing responsibilities and board consideration (without implying entitlement).

Candidate Profile

We are seeking senior operational leaders (typically 12–20+ years) with credibility in one or more of:

• Critical infrastructure operations (energy, water, transport, telecom, health, logistics, industrial systems).
• Large-scale service operations and continuity leadership (BCP/DR, incident command, cyber resilience).
• Risk and resilience roles inside regulated industries, including operational risk and reliability engineering.
• Cross-sector convening requiring neutrality, confidentiality, and disciplined documentation.

Capabilities and Mindset

• Deep operational realism: sees dependencies and failure modes before others do.
• Calm under stress: experienced in incidents, outages, surge conditions, and recovery.
• Neutral convenor: can convene competitors safely without drift into procurement or deals.
• Documentation discipline: converts operator reality into clear constraints, conditions, and testable requirements.
• Integrity-first: treats handling, corrections, and do-no-harm as non-negotiable.

Eligibility, Membership, and Independence

• Holds a primary full-time role outside the council seat and can commit sustained time at the expected cadence.
• Willing to fully disclose relevant interests (employer ties, vendor relationships, procurement influence) and comply with conflict-of-interest and recusal requirements.
• Not placed in a situation where service creates unmanageable conflicts or compromises neutrality.
• Accepts strict confidentiality, handling discipline, and communications integrity expectations.
• Commits to remain in good standing (participation, disclosures, and applicable contribution obligations).