Head of Secure Connectivity (all humans)

Make a difference in the financial life of millions of people: At Erste Digital you are co-creating the digital future, in which better financial health is possible. #believeinyourself

We are part of Erste Group – the largest banking group in Central and Eastern Europe with more than 2,500 branches and over 45,000 employees. Our more than 2,000 IT experts and enthusiasts are the bank's Digital Muscle.

Help shape the next generation of Cyber & Information Security at Erste Digital

We are evolving our security organization around clear missions, accountable services and stronger collaboration across domains. As Head of Department, you will shape the capability together with your teams and peers rather than inherit a fixed organizational blueprint. You will be accountable for outcomes, people leadership, service maturity and cross-Group value.

Your Mission

Shape and be accountable for the operation and evolution of the critical connectivity and protection capabilities that keep Erste Digital securely connected every day - from VPN, firewall, intrusion prevention, WAF and DDoS protection to Zero Trust access and privileged access. The role combines strategic evolution with substantial operational responsibility: ensuring these services are resilient, well operated and continuously improved while reducing implicit trust and unnecessary exposure.

What you will shape and be accountable for

• Own the operational performance and evolution of critical connectivity and protection services, including VPN, firewall, intrusion prevention, WAF, DDoS protection, Zero Trust access and privileged access.

• Establish operational excellence across availability, resilience, lifecycle management, change quality, capacity, recovery readiness and clear service ownership.

• Drive the transition from broad network access toward identity-, device- and context-aware access while maintaining stable service for existing consumers.

• Ensure incidents, control failures and service degradations are handled decisively, with clear escalation, learning and preventive improvement.

• Create strong interfaces with identity, architecture, detection, incident response, exposure management and technology operations so dependencies work under both normal and crisis conditions.

Group first - Built to scale beyond one entity

• Think Group First: design every capability so it can be consumed across the Group where feasible, or at minimum produce reusable blueprints, patterns, standards and lessons that create value beyond Erste Digital.

• Seek alignment with Group Security and relevant entities before creating local-only solutions where a shared approach is realistic.

• Balance local delivery responsibility with the ambition to simplify, standardize and scale security capabilities across the Group.

What success looks like

• High availability and resilient operation of critical connectivity and protection services, with clear ownership and recovery readiness.

• Predictable change and lifecycle management, fewer avoidable disruptions and faster restoration when incidents occur.

• Reusable access, connectivity and privileged-access patterns that can be consumed across products, platforms and Group entities.

• Measurable reduction of broad network trust, standing privilege and unmanaged access paths while maintaining a good user experience.

Who benefits from your work

Employees, administrators, application and platform teams, infrastructure operations, Group entities and customers benefit from connectivity and protection services that are available when needed, resilient under stress, secure by design and straightforward to consume.