Director, Incident Response

About the role

KPMG Advisory practice is at the forefront of transformation, offering excellent opportunities for individuals to advance their careers and expertise. In this ever-changing market environment, our professionals must be adaptable and thrive in a collaborative, team-driven culture. At KPMG, our people are our number one priority, with a wealth of learning and career development opportunities, world-class training, and leading market tools to help you grow both professionally and personally.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise cyber incident response engagements, overseeing containment, investigation, recovery, remediation, and post-incident resilience efforts
• Advise executive leadership, boards, and key stakeholders during incidents, providing strategic guidance, crisis management, and cross-functional coordination
• Direct incident investigations, root cause analysis, and remediation initiatives while advancing incident response methodologies, playbooks, and service offerings
• Oversee, mentor, and QC high-performing incident response teams, driving operational excellence, service delivery, performance metrics, and continuous improvement
• Partner across cybersecurity, risk, privacy, and forensics teams while supporting business growth through client relationship management, solution development, and trusted advisory leadership
• Act with integrity, professionalism, and personal responsibility to uphold KPMG's respectful and courteous work environment

Requirements

• Minimum ten years of recent experience in incident response, threat management, digital forensics, security operations, or related cybersecurity disciplines
• Seven years leading incident response teams and large-scale response engagements
• CISSP, GCIH, GCFA, GCFE, CISM, or similar certifications preferred
• Bachelor's degree in business or related field from an accredited college/university is preferred; minimum of a high school diploma or GED required plus twelve years of relevant experience in incident response
• Strong presence in the digital forensics and incident response market, including conference speaking experience and established relationships within the law firm and insurance sectors is highly preferred
• Proven experience leading complex cyber incident investigations and response engagements using industry frameworks such as NIST and SANS
• Expertise across digital forensics, SIEM, EDR/XDR platforms, automation tools, and Windows, Linux, macOS, cloud (Azure, AWS, GCP), networking, and IT/OT environments
• Demonstrated success building and maturing incident response and cyber resilience programs
• Strong executive presence, stakeholder management, and the ability to lead multiple high-priority engagements while supporting client relationships and business growth
• 33% travel requirement
• Authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based visa sponsorship now or in the future

Pay

California Salary Range: $169,005 - $370,530

Benefits

KPMG offers a comprehensive compensation and benefits package, including:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Disability and life insurance
• 401(k) plans
• Robust suite of personal well-being benefits to support mental health
• Personal Time Off per fiscal year, based on job classification, standard work hours, and years of service
• Two annual breaks where employees will not be required to use Personal Time Off (one at year-end and one around the July 4th holiday)
• Paid holidays as per the published calendar