Operational resilience has shifted from best practice to executive responsibility. As regulatory expectations rise, leaders are now accountable not just for investing in resilience, but for proving it through clear governance, oversight, and outcomes at the board level.
Operational resilience has officially moved from best practice to baseline expectation. What was once framed as a maturity goal or transformation initiative is now firmly embedded in regulatory scrutiny, and executive responsibility.
As regulators raise the bar, resilience is no longer something leaders can delegate or defer. Accountability now sits squarely at the top.
Resilience Is No Longer Optional
Regulations such as Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in Europe, alongside guidance from bodies like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) in the United States, are making one thing clear:
Executives are legally accountable for operational resilience.
This shift doesn’t redefine what resilience is, but it significantly raises expectations for how it must be governed, demonstrated, and sustained.
What Has Changed, and What Hasn’t
Operational resilience still centers on an organization’s ability to continue delivering critical services through disruption. What has changed is the level of scrutiny and the consequences of failure.
What Hasn’t Changed
- The core definition of operational resilience
- The need to protect critical services
- The importance of people, process, and governance
What Has Changed
- Regulatory enforcement and legal accountability
- Board-level oversight expectations
- Executive responsibility for outcomes, not just investments
Regulatory Expectations at a Glance
| Regulatory Focus Area | What Regulators Expect |
|---|---|
| Executive Oversight | Clear ownership and accountability at the executive level |
| Governance | Defined decision-making structures and escalation paths |
| Critical Services | Identification and prioritization of essential services |
| Disruption Tolerance | Understanding how much disruption is acceptable—and why |
| Ongoing Assurance | Continuous assessment, not one-time compliance |
Why This Matters for Leaders
Regulatory pressure creates urgency, but urgency without clarity creates risk.
Executives are now expected to:
- Understand how resilience is defined within their organization
- Demonstrate governance, not just tool adoption
- Prove resilience through evidence, not intent
This is no longer about checking boxes. It’s about showing that resilience is embedded into how the organization operates and makes decisions.
Common Pitfall: Treating Resilience as a Compliance Exercise
One of the biggest risks organizations face is responding to regulation with surface-level compliance.
Typical warning signs include:
- Over-reliance on technology without clear ownership
- Policies that exist but aren’t operationalized
- Board updates that report activity, not resilience outcomes
Regulators are increasingly looking beyond documentation to assess real operational capability.
What to Do Next
If resilience is now an expectation, leaders must ask:
- Do we have clear executive ownership?
- Can we explain how resilience is governed end to end?
- Are we confident we could evidence resilience under regulatory review?
To understand what this means for your organization in more depth, watch the full discussion in the original video linked above.
