The Specialist - ITSM Major Incident Management is the global process lead accountable for restoring business-critical technology services rapidly and safely, while minimizing customer, policyholder, colleague and operational impact. Based in Pune, this senior individual contributor will command major incidents across regions, establish a reliable follow-the-sun operating rhythm and own the maturity, control and measurable performance of the Incident Management practice. The role leads through influence across infrastructure, applications, cybersecurity, service desk, business operations, vendors and senior leadership; it does not own technical remediation. The role also coaches junior Incident and Process Analysts.
- Own the global Incident Management practice, policy, controls, governance cadence and improvement roadmap, aligned to ITIL 4 and enterprise risk expectations.
- Act as incident commander for major incidents: validate severity and business impact, establish the war room, mobilize swarms, set restoration priorities and maintain clear decision ownership until service is stabilized.
- Translate technical symptoms into business impact, including disruption to critical insurance services, customer or policyholder journeys, operational processing, data availability and regulatory or contractual commitments.
- Coordinate application, infrastructure, cloud, network, cybersecurity, service desk and supplier teams across time zones, escalating capacity or decision barriers without assuming technical resolver accountability.
- Set and enforce major-incident communication standards, including audience, cadence, decision logs, executive updates, business-facing messages and handover requirements.
- Govern global follow-the-sun handovers, on-call interfaces, escalation paths, SLA/OLA performance and third-party obligations so incidents retain momentum across regions.
- Ensure ServiceNow incident records provide an auditable chronology, accurate categorization, impact and urgency, affected service/CI linkage, actions, ownership, communications and restoration evidence.
- Lead post-incident reviews for material incidents; secure evidence-based actions, clear owners and target dates, and connect root-cause investigation to Problem Management and corrective implementation to Change Enablement.
- Own incident KPIs and KRIs such as restoration performance, major-incident recurrence, communication timeliness, SLA/OLA attainment, aging, reassignment and quality of closure; explain trends and control gaps to senior governance forums.
- Use incident, monitoring and service data to identify systemic weaknesses, automation and knowledge opportunities, and improvements to detection, routing, swarming and stakeholder communications.
- Exercise proportionate crisis leadership during cyber or resilience events, coordinating with the accountable security, continuity and business teams while maintaining disciplined incident command.
- Mentor junior analysts in impact assessment, prioritization, command discipline, stakeholder communication, record quality and post-incident review methods; create reusable playbooks and simulation scenarios.
Experience & Education*
- Total professional experience: minimum 15 years.
- Relevant experience: substantial, demonstrable experience in enterprise Incident and Major Incident Management, including command of high-impact, multi-team incidents in global environments.
- Education: bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience in technology, engineering, business operations or a related discipline.
- Demonstrated process ownership or senior governance responsibility across complex application, infrastructure, cloud, network, workplace, cybersecurity and supplier ecosystems.
- Demonstrated experience influencing senior business and technology stakeholders and communicating clearly during high-pressure service disruption.
- Experience working independently as a senior individual contributor and coaching junior analysts.
- Preferred: experience in a GCC, shared-services or large multinational operating model; insurance or another highly regulated industry; operational resilience or crisis simulation activity.
- ITSM/process expertise: deep knowledge of ITIL 4 Incident Management, major incident procedures, prioritization, escalation, swarming, Service Level Management, Monitoring and Event Management, Problem Management, Knowledge Management and Continual Improvement.
- Technical/platform capabilities: strong functional expertise in ServiceNow Incident Management, major-incident workflows, service/CI context, assignment and escalation logic, notifications, dashboards, reporting and audit history. Able to define requirements and acceptance criteria without being a ServiceNow developer.
- Business-impact judgement: rapidly distinguishes technical severity from business criticality and makes proportionate decisions using service, customer, policyholder, financial, operational, security and resilience context.
- Leadership and stakeholders: maintains command presence, concise executive communication and decision discipline; constructively challenges delay, ambiguity and weak ownership across teams and suppliers.
- Data and improvement: converts incident data into trends, control insights, automation opportunities and a prioritized improvement backlog.
- Differentiators: experience with global command centres, ChatOps or automated stakeholder communications, observability/AIOps integrations, crisis exercises, or service dependency mapping.
Essential requirement (non-negotiable) *
- 15+ years of relevant professional experience and credible global enterprise ITSM experience.
- Proven leadership of severe, business-impacting incidents across multiple technology towers and suppliers.
- Demonstrated ownership or governance of the Incident Management process, not only operational ticket handling.
- Strong ServiceNow Incident Management functional experience, including major-incident records, dashboards, process controls and data quality.
- Ability to communicate business impact, decisions, risks and restoration status to executive and operational audiences under pressure.
- Ability to work across global time zones when major incidents require it and to operate within a follow-the-sun model.
- Evidence of measurable continual improvement and effective mentoring of junior analysts.
Certification if any
- ITIL 4 Foundation and advanced ITIL 3 or 4 practice/module certification relevant to service operations.
- Relevant ServiceNow training or certification is advantageous where it demonstrates functional Incident Management capability.
- Crisis management, business continuity or operational resilience training is a differentiator rather than a mandatory requirement.