About this role

- Full time, permanent role
- Enjoy excellent career progression in a ‘hands‑on’ leadership role
- Work with Partners who are truly invested in your career development

Grant Thornton Australia is one of the world's leading independently‑owned and managed accounting, advisory and consulting firms. Our culture is underpinned by a commitment to our clients, people and communities, and our promise to ‘Reach for Remarkable’ by providing proven expertise, principled execution, and personalised experience. In Australia, we’re proud to support the careers of over 1,500 remarkable people. With six offices nationally and partner firms in more than 145 markets, wherever you want to go, we can take you there.

We’re shaping the next evolution of our cyber defend and operations capability for an AI‑enabled threat world and looking for a self‑starting, commercially astute Director to help lead it. Cyber defend and operations is going through a significant evolution as AI changes attacker behaviour, client expectations, operating models and the economics of always‑on cyber defence. This role will help shape a locally relevant, globally connected and differentiated capability that spans advisory, implementation and managed service outcomes. It is for someone who understands what this shift means for customers, go‑to‑market strategy and commercial models, and who can translate that into practical services that clients value. If you’ve led a cyber defence, security operations or detection and response capability, thought “I’d do this differently next time”, and have the war stories to go with it, this is the role for you.

With us, you’ll be exposed to challenging and rewarding opportunities,



building your confidence and capabilities at every step. You’ll be supported, motivated and inspired by a team of passionate and caring collaborators and leaders. You’ll be empowered to build a career path that’s tailored to you and encouraged to make a meaningful difference. And we’ll make sure the excellence you deliver and the impact you make is always seen, felt and celebrated.

What you’ll do

- Lead the local evolution of our cyber defend and operations capability, drawing on existing global capability, methods and expertise while adapting them for the Australian market.
- Work directly with clients to understand their environment, threat landscape, operating model and tolerance for risk, then advise on cyber defence and operations models that fit.
- Help shape advisory recommendations, implementation pathways, use case development, detection engineering, triage, response workflows, service improvement and the operating model required to deliver consistently at scale.
- Own and shape the service roadmap, onboarding experience and customer journey, ensuring the capability is scalable, differentiated and practical to deliver.
- Shape how AI‑enabled threats, automation and analyst workflows influence our service design, customer outcomes, go‑to‑market strategy and commercial models.
- Work as part of a global network of cyber defence and operations professionals,



drawing on shared capability while developing a locally relevant and differentiated offering.
- Lead and grow a team of security operations professionals, with responsibility for their development and career progression.
- Advise executives and boards on detection and response, translating operational performance, service metrics and risk outcomes into terms they can act on.
- Act as a senior escalation point for major client incidents, service issues and complex delivery decisions.
- Hold senior client relationships, identify opportunities across advisory, implementation and managed operations, and contribute to sales enablement, recurring revenue growth and sustainable service delivery.
- Contribute to how the practice develops, including service design, technology partner engagement and bringing new people through.

What you’ll need

- Experience in a leadership role within a security operations centre, managed detection and response, cyber defence operations, or similar capability, either in‑house or as a service provider.
- Experience materially evolving a cyber defence, detection and response, operating model, team or client‑facing service.
- Experience working with clients or stakeholders outside your own organisation, whether in consulting, service delivery, or as an internal team serving the wider business.
- A track record of leading and developing teams, and a genuine interest in doing it.
- Deep knowledge of what makes cyber defence and operations work, including operating models, detection coverage, response playbooks, escalation pathways, service metrics and continuous improvement.
- Experience with the platforms and tooling behind a modern SOC; exposure to techno

📌 Director - Cyber Defend and Operate (Sydney)
🏢 Grant Thornton Australia
📍 Sydney