The Assistant Vice President /VP SOC will lead, manage, and optimize the SOC, ensuring real-time monitoring, detection, analysis, and response to cybersecurity threats. This role is critical in safeguarding critical infrastructure, trading platforms, and member connectivity, while ensuring compliance with regulatory mandates SEBI CSCRF, NCIIPC, CERT-In and global best practices ISO 27001, NIST CSF etc.

The candidate should have proven cybersecurity expertise in Information Security, SOC operations, incident response, and regulatory compliance in financial services or regulated trading environments.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Governance:

- Define and execute SOC strategy aligned with business objectives, cybersecurity vision, and compliance requirements.

- Develop and maintain SOC policies, processes, and playbooks based on industry best practices (e.g., NIST, ISO 27001, MITRE ATT&CK).

- Implement a SOC Maturity Roadmap to enhance detection, response, and recovery capabilities.

- Establish and monitor KPIs to measure SOC effectiveness (MTTD, MTTR, containment rates).

Continuous Monitoring & Threat Detection:

- Oversee 24x7 SOC operations ensuring timely detection and incident response.

- Integrate SIEM, SOAR, XDR, IDS/IPS, UEBA, and threat intelligence platforms for advanced monitoring.

- Monitor trading platforms, APIs, and connectivity gateways for anomalies and vulnerabilities.

- Track zero-day vulnerabilities, emerging threats, and APTs targeting financial markets.

Incident Response & Crisis Management:

- Lead incident triage, investigation, containment, and recovery.

- Conduct root cause analysis and post-incident reviews to prevent recurrence.

- Coordinate major incident response with regulators (SEBI, CERT-In, RBI) and law enforcement.

- Conduct red/blue team simulations, tabletop exercises, and cyber drills to validate readiness.

Threat Intelligence & Proactive Dfense:

- Build and integrate Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) programs relevant to financial services.

- Implement proactive threat-hunting programs to detect and mitigate risks early.

- Collaborate with security architecture and engineering teams to improve detection and prevention.

Technology & Process Optimization:

- Manage and optimize SOC tools, platforms, and analytics.

- Drive automation (SOAR, ML-based anomaly detection, scripting) to improve efficiency and reduce MTTR.

- Integrate SOC operations with NOC, fraud monitoring, and business continuity for resilience.

- Ensure forensic readiness, log management, and data retention meet regulatory standards.

Compliance & Regulatory Reporting:

- Ensure compliance with SEBI CSCRF, CERT-In directives, DPDPA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001.

- Prepare and submit mandatory incident reports within required timelines.

- Maintain audit-ready documentation and support external/internal audits and risk assessments.

- Provide executive dashboards and reports on incidents, threats, and SOC performance.

Governance, Risk & Compliance Alignment:

- Strong Understanding of enterprise GRC frameworks and their integration with SOC

- Collaborate with risk and compliance teams

- Mapping SOC processes to enterprise risk registers, control assessments and resilience initiatives.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

- Regulatory Compliance: Zero major non-compliance findings in SEBI/CERT-In audits.

- Incident Response: Continuous reduction in MTTD and MTTR.

- Availability & Resilience: 99%+ uptime of SOC operations during cyber events.

- Proactive Defense: Increased percentage of threats neutralized before escalation.

- SOC Maturity: Improved audit scores and resilience metrics.

- Team Growth: Analyst certification levels, skill development, and retention.

- Exp -14-20 yrsyears in cybersecurity, with 5-7 years in SOC leadership (preferably in financial services, exchanges, or high-frequency trading). Strong experience in incident response, forensic investigations, crisis management, and regulatory compliance.

- Bachelor's or master's in computer science, Cybersecurity, Information Security, or related field.