Head of Cybersecurity Defense Operations

Location: Buffalo, New York, United States; four days onsite at Seneca One and one day per week working from home

Salary: $167,600.00–$279,400.00 annual USD

Company

M&T Bank is a regulated financial institution operating enterprise cybersecurity, technology risk, resilience, and banking functions.

What you will do

• Lead the enterprise Cyber Defense Operations strategy, roadmap, budget, and operational execution.
• Oversee security monitoring, threat detection, incident response, threat intelligence, threat hunting, insider threat, DLP, and cyber defense engineering.
• Direct the 24x7x365 Cybersecurity Operations Center, including monitoring, triage, escalation, response, and containment.
• Provide executive oversight of the Cybersecurity Incident Response Team and act as or designate the Cyber Incident Commander for major incidents.
• Modernize cyber defense through automation, SOAR, workflow tooling, scripting, advanced analytics, AI-enabled capabilities, and threat-informed defense.
• Lead metrics, regulatory and audit engagements, risk reporting, workforce planning, and collaboration with cybersecurity, technology, risk, compliance, legal, audit, and executive stakeholders.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 9 years of relevant experience, or 13 years of combined higher education and work experience in lieu of a degree.
• Expert knowledge of cybersecurity principles and at least 8 years of experience in the relevant cybersecurity function.
• At least 3 years of managerial experience.
• Experience leading multiple cybersecurity functions or teams with minimal direction and managing staffing, performance, succession, and workforce development.
• Ability to work four days onsite in Buffalo, New York, with one remote day per week.
• Ability to support regulatory examinations, audits, risk controls, and executive communication regarding cyber risk posture.

Nice to have

• Experience leading enterprise SOC or CSOC organizations within a large, highly regulated financial institution.
• Experience overseeing incident response, threat intelligence, threat hunting, detection engineering, insider threat, and DLP programs.
• Experience with SIEM, SOAR, EDR, NDR, threat intelligence platforms, and advanced cybersecurity analytics.
• Experience with ransomware preparedness, cyber resilience, automation, AI-enabled operations, and cybersecurity transformation.
• Success building high-performing cybersecurity organizations through growth, modernization, and change.

Culture & Benefits

• Leadership role within a 24x7x365 cyber defense mission.
• Opportunity to shape enterprise cybersecurity transformation and operational resilience.
• Collaboration with senior technology, risk, compliance, audit, legal, corporate security, and business leaders.
• Responsibility for developing a culture of accountability, innovation, resilience, belonging, and continuous learning.