Director, Proactive Defense Operations

Business Introduction

GSK remains committed to achieving bold commercial ambitions for the future. By 2031, we aim to deliver £40 billion in annual sales, leveraging our existing strong performance momentum to significantly increase our positive impact on the health of billions of patients globally. Our Ahead Together strategy is centred on early intervention to prevent and alter the course of disease, thereby protecting people and supporting healthcare systems.
Our diverse portfolio consists of vaccines, specialty medicines, and general medicines.
Through continuous innovation and a dedicated focus on scientific and technical excellence, we strive to develop and launch new, groundbreaking treatments that address critical health challenges.


Position Summary

The Director, Proactive Defense Operations will own the Proactive Defense Operations (PDO) capability end to end, including its strategy, delivery and performance. This is a leadership role accountable for converting global adversary threat data into validated, automated defensive action at machine speed, and for the team that delivers it.  

About the team  

Proactive Defense Operations (PDO) moves GSK from an intelligence-and-reporting model to an automation- and engineering-centric capability. The team converts global threat data into immediate, validated operational actions, interrogating internal telemetry, triggering automated defenses and equipping defenders with contextualized, high-fidelity blueprints. PDO is organized into two operational pillars, Intelligence Automation and Threat & Context Analysis, and functions as the proactive defensive engine of Cyber Defense, working closely with Detection Engineering, SecOps/Incident Response and Vulnerability Management.  Join us as a leader in shaping the future of cybersecurity at GSK. In this role, you will lead the Predictive Security Operations team to anticipate and respond to evolving cyber threats. You will work closely with diverse teams across the organization, helping us stay ahead of risks that could impact our mission. We seek someone curious, collaborative, and committed to continuous learning. Here, your work will have a meaningful impact, helping protect our people, data, and technologies as we unite science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together.

Responsibilities

This role will provide YOU the opportunity to lead key activities to progress YOUR career. These responsibilities include some of the following:

• Own the Proactive Defense Operations capability end to end, including roadmap, delivery and service performance.  
• Lead and develop the team, setting priorities and managing performance across both operational pillars.  

• Own the capability budget and supplier and vendor relationships.  

• Report capability performance and risk to CSO leadership and governance forums.  

• Own the enterprise Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIR) framework, calibrating threat collection and automated triage to actual corporate risk.  

• Direct machine-speed exposure triage and escalation, setting SLAs from threat identification to validated IR escalation or Proactive Operational Pack (POP) delivery.  

• Govern the PDO technology stack (SIEM, security data lake, SOAR, Threat Intelligence Platform) and approve automation pipeline and API integration architecture.  

• Own the RASCI interfaces with Detection Engineering, SecOps/IR and Vulnerability Management, ensuring PDO outputs are consumed rapidly and without rework.  

• Build and maintain the metrics that show whether the Cyber Defense function is getting ahead of threat activity.  
• Lead your team in using approved AI tools to improve productivity and ways of working, role-modelling responsible use and follow GSK’s Responsible AI, privacy and security requirements.
  

Why You?

Basic Qualification

We are seeking professionals with the following required skills and qualifications to help us achieve our goals:

• Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, computer science, information technology, or a related discipline, or equivalent related experience.  
• 12+ years of cyber security experience.  

• Experience in security operations, detection engineering, or security data science.  

• Experience with SIEM/SOAR platforms, telemetry pipelines, and detection rule frameworks such as YARA-L or Sigma.  

• Experience with end-to-end ownership of a cyber security capability.  

• Leadership or people management experience with technical or specialist teams.  

• Experience managing budgets, suppliers, and delivery commitments.

Preferred Qualification

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:

• CISSP, CISM or equivalent senior security certification.  

• Expert-level proficiency in MITRE ATT&CK and Cyber Kill Chain operationalization.  

• Experience engineering or governing low-code/no-code automation at enterprise scale.  

• Experience leading teams that operationalize intelligence into automated defensive action  

• Familiarity with AI/ML integration in security workflows, particularly generative AI for detection logic drafting and NLP-driven telemetry querying.  

• Track record of breaking down silos between intelligence, detection and response functions, with exposure to OT/ICS threat environments.  

• Experience in pharmaceutical, life sciences or another highly regulated industry.  

• Experience working with GxP-regulated data and technology environments.  

• Experience working across scientific, manufacturing, data, engineering, Quality, and technology teams.  

• Experience providing technical leadership, coaching specialists, or establishing standards and reusable technical patterns.  

• Ability to translate complex scientific, manufacturing, and technical concepts for different stakeholder groups.

#GSK-LI #AGTech

Skills

AI for Cybersecurity, Cloud Security, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Forensic Data Analysis, Incident Management, Infrastructure Security, Intrusion Detection, Intrusion Prevention, ML Security, Offensive Cyber Operations, Security Monitoring, Security Operations, Security Planning, Security Protocols, Security Risk, Security Technologies

 

 

The US annual base salary for new hires in this position ranges from $168,750 to $281,250. The US salary ranges take into account a number of factors including work location within the US market, the candidate’s skills, experience, education level and the market rate for the role. In addition, this position offers an annual bonus and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program which is dependent on the level of the role. Available benefits include health care and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, paid holidays, vacation, and paid caregiver/parental and medical leave. If salary ranges are not displayed in the job posting for a specific country, the relevant compensation will be discussed during the recruitment process.

Please visit  GSK US Benefits Summary to learn more about the comprehensive benefits program GSK offers US employees.

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale.

People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

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GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law.

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