Group IT Security Officer

We are looking for an IT Security Officer for a big industrial company (Belgium, Germany or UK)

Location: Belgium, UK or southwest Germany (Karlsruhe region), your choice
Full-time
Travel within Europe once or twice a month, plus an intercontinental trip about once a quarter
International role with a global scope, English as working language

About the company

This company is an international industrial group with thousands of employees worldwide. The group is organised in several divisions, and each division has its own IT Security Officer. You will be the one for one of the technology divisions, with sites, people and IT services spread over several continents.

Why this role exists

Group IT Security set the policies. Each division has to put them into practice in its own business, with its own systems and its own priorities. That link is what this role is about. As IT Security Officer you translate group policy into what actually happens in your division. You also bring back what the business needs.

This is not a hands-on technical job. You steer, advise, follow up and make sure things get done.

What you will do

Together with group IT security, you help set the IT security direction for your division. You work closely with business managers worldwide to find out which data matters most to them, and how to protect it. You make sure the IT services your division uses are secure and compliant. You keep an IT security and compliance dashboard up to date, so everyone can see where things stand.

You won't do this from behind a screen. Once or twice a month you travel to one of the division's sites in Europe to meet local management and IT teams, follow up on actions and run awareness sessions. About once a quarter that trip takes you further, to a site on another continent. A lot of trust in this role is built face to face.

When a security flaw or breach shows up, you make sure the right actions are defined and carried out on time. You roll out the group's IT security policies and procedures in your division and check that people follow them. You also run security awareness across all countries in your division. That takes patience, because a factory floor and a head office don't always see risk the same way.

IT teams and business units come to you when they build or change IT services. You tell them what that means for security, early enough for them to take it into account.

There is also a yearly rhythm of audits and assessments. You take part in IT security audits when the CISO or internal audit asks for it. You coordinate the annual control self-assessment and join the cyber risk assessments for your division. You keep the disaster recovery plans up to date and make sure they get tested. You follow new legislation and standards that affect IT security and compliance.

You are also part of a small network of security officers from the other divisions. Together you help shape the group's overall security strategy and compliance framework.

Who we are looking for

You already have solid experience in IT security, ideally in a large international organisation with several business units. You know frameworks such as ISO 27001 or NIST well and you can explain them to someone who has never heard of them. Your English is fluent, spoken and written, because almost everything in this role happens in English.

You are comfortable talking to a plant manager in the morning and a CISO in the afternoon. You can be firm on policy without becoming the person everyone avoids.

This role is not a good fit if you want to stay deeply technical. Most of your impact comes from coordination, advice and follow-up. If regular travel in Europe and a long-haul trip every quarter don't fit your life right now, this job won't work for you either.

What you can expect

You choose whether you work from Belgium, UK or from Germany. It is a full-time role with an international scope and real responsibility for one division.