Job Description
About Us
ISTARI is a strategic cybersecurity advisory company with a bold vision: to curate the defining cybersecurity ecosystem of our time - uniting enterprise, academia, government, and innovators to build collective resilience. At the heart of this mission, ISTARI helps clients achieve lasting organisational cyber resilience by convening and applying world-class talent, expertise, and innovation through a uniquely powerful network - with ISTARI as the central orchestrator.
The Opportunity
To serve as the operational and governance “engine room” of the Advisory practice. You will be responsible for managing the end-to-end operational success of Advisory engagements across ISTARI - both internally and in collaboration with portfolio companies and strategic partners - ensuring disciplined execution, strong commercial performance and consistent high-quality client outcomes.
The role will also own the governance, lifecycle management and continuous evolution of ISTARI’s Advisory capabilities, service catalogue and associated roadmaps. This includes ensuring all services remain current, relevant and differentiated through the integration of new IP, regulatory developments, cyber and risk intelligence, and partner/portfolio capabilities.
You will ensure the Advisory “Shop Window” is underpinned by robust delivery, clear service definition, current methodologies and market-aligned propositions.
What You’ll Do:
1. Governance: Responsible for the end-to-end integrity of the advisory lifecycle by implementing and enforcing standardised Quality Assurance (QA) frameworks. This role ensures that every engagement - from initial opportunity scoping to final project delivery—adheres to internal governance standards, mitigates operational risk, and maintains the high-caliber reputation of the practice.
2. Advisory Delivery & Engagement Management: Support and ensure adherence to QA frameworks by the Delivery team in the delivery of advisory engagements across the practice, ensuring effective coordination of internal teams, portfolio companies and strategic partners. Act as the central point of coordination across Pods to ensure seamless execution, knowledge transfer and client experience.
3. Traffic Control & Resourcing: Manage the global allocation of internal FTEs, partners and portfolio resources across all Advisory engagements. Balance demand, specialist capability and commercial objectives to support revenue and recovery targets.Ensure appropriate resource planning aligned to priority capability areas (e.g. cyber resilience, identity, risk and regulatory).
4. Expert Network Stewardship: Oversee onboarding, vetting and governance of subcontractors, portfolio companies and specialist partners engaged in Advisory delivery. Ensure all third parties meet ISTARI standards across delivery quality, documentation, commercial terms and client engagement. Support the development of strategic delivery partnerships aligned to priority service areas.
5. Commercial Hygiene: Monitor project budgets in real-time to protect profitability, ensuring all engagements are properly scoped and priced according to the Service Catalogue tiers.
6. Service Catalogue & Capability Lifecycle: Own the lifecycle management of the Advisory Service Catalogue and associated capability roadmaps. Ensure all services are clearly defined, costed, packaged and aligned to ISTARI’s strategic growth priorities. Maintain alignment between service definitions, delivery models, pricing structures and go-to-market positioning. Continuously review and update services to reflect:
* New intellectual property and methodologies
* Regulatory and risk developments
* Emerging cyber/security trends
* Portfolio and partner capability evolution
* Market and client demand
7. Advisory IP, Knowledge & Industry Intelligence: Ensure structured capture and curation of advisory IP, methodologies and sanitised client deliverables. Drive continuous refresh of Advisory propositions and content based on:
* Engagement insights
* Industry and regulatory intelligence
* Threat landscape evolution
* Partner and portfolio innovation
* Maintain a central, current and accessible knowledge base underpinning the Advisory “Shop Window.”
8. Operational Reporting: Provide regular reporting to Global Head of Advisory and ExCo on:
* Advisory delivery performance
* Capability utilisation and capacity
* Margin and recovery
* Pipeline vs capability alignment
* Service catalogue maturity and gaps
* Deliver insight to support investment and capability prioritisation decisions.
What You'll Bring
* Security & Advisory Operating Experience: Experience operating within a cyber security, risk, technology or professional services advisory environment. Strong understanding of how high-value advisory services are structured, delivered and evolved.
* Governance & Lifecycle Management: Proven ability to govern and evolve service portfolios and capability frameworks within a fast-moving market. Comfortable managing service lifecycle from definition through to delivery and continuous improvement.
* Commercial Acumen: Strong grasp of consulting and advisory unit economics including margin management, utilisation and partner cost dynamics. Ability to balance commercial discipline with high-quality client outcomes.
* Process Rigor & Operational Discipline: Metrics-driven with strong attention to detail and data accuracy. Able to establish structured operating rhythms and governance in a scaling environment.
* Stakeholder Influence: Confident working with senior stakeholders across leadership, partners and portfolio companies. Able to provide constructive challenge and maintain alignment across multiple delivery parties.
* Systems & Knowledge Management: Experience using CRM/PSA and knowledge management platforms (e.g. Salesforce, Confluence or similar) to maintain a single source of truth for services, delivery and IP.
* Adaptability: Comfortable operating in a scale-up environment where structures and services are evolving. Able to build, implement and run operational frameworks simultaneously.
Compensation and Benefits
* Base Salary: A competitive base salary, benchmarked against industry practice in our hub locations.
* Annual Performance-Related Bonus: An on-target annual bonus, linked to individual performance and contribution.
* Benefits: A comprehensive and competitive benefits package, including medical and dental cover, pension contributions, and life insurance.
* Flexibility: We support a hybrid working model. Willingness to travel for client engagements is required.