North America Head of Sales, Morningstar Credit

The Role:

We are seeking a senior sales leader with deep experience in corporate credit and CLO markets to scale the Morningstar Credit Analytics platform. As Head of Sales, you’ll be responsible for architecting a sales strategy, working with the sales team to strategizing next steps, negotiating complex deals and growing the business. This is a strategic, high-visibility player/coach role reporting directly to the President of Morningstar Credit, with the opportunity to shape how we go to market with a next-gen suite of analytics products. You’ll join at a pivotal moment, building new revenue lines, collaborating with product, and unlocking meaningful growth.

Responsibilities:

This role will follow a roughly 60/40 split between sales and people management with an existing team of sellers. The breakdown and responsibilities would operate under the framework below.

Selling (60%)

Understand our customers, products, markets, and competition in depth.

Build relationships with existing customers to understand value-added product use-cases.

Coordinate meetings with internal and external stakeholders to brainstorm potential product enhancements or changes.

Effectively communicate customer needs/wants to product strategy team for implementation.

Participate in conferences, organize Morningstar Credit events, and set up meetings to present Morningstar Credit to prospective customers.

Organize product demos for prospective customers for new products and product enhancements.

Understand customer content delivery needs (e.g. web interface, standalone product, API, etc.)

Constantly explore ways to integrate Morningstar Credit products into external user workflows.

Collaborate with Product and Technology teams tracking enhancement requests and bug fixes and report progress.

Work closely with the DBRS Morningstar business development team and rating analysts to deliver value to internal and external consumers of products and services.

Determine pricing strategies for components of each product, based on market demand, competitive pricing, value-added, cost of production, etc.

Create and maintain fee schedule consistent with pricing strategies.

Regularly check-in with existing clients to determine satisfaction.

Provide customer support and create and deliver training material on products as applicable.

Focus on customer retention when products do not meet specific needs of non-renewal customers.

Determine economic feasibility of product enhancements required for customer retention.

Proactively gather customer feedback and quickly and effectively solve customer issues.

Management (40%)

Define, articulate and implement the strategy for sales against the agreed revenue targets aligned with the product development/roadmap and related sales channels

Tracking and reporting of key sales metrics across the funnel, including strategies on improving results

Ongoing review of leads management including qualification criteria and other key metrics (meetings, demos etc)

Ongoing review of sales cycles - what’s working, what’s not working, where bottlenecks might lie

Revenue & Pipeline Management: Ensuring that the pipeline of opportunities is constantly growing, and that the prospects are moving as quickly from lead through opportunity into revenue generating client

Prepares forecasts

Sales and Product Marketing management, ensuring that the teams have the information and resources required to optimally perform their duties in line with the sales and marketing strategy, including

1:1s with sales teams to review performance objectives

Managing activity around weekly reporting & CRM updates

Coordination of collaboration across sales team (including incentivisation strategies) ensuring clarity on prospecting and opportunity management leading to a happy and productive sales team that is winning

Setting and management of sales targets across the team

Identification of key sales enablement needs for each product for both direct & indirect channels

Review and collaborate on account management strategy & customer retention

Ensure close collaboration with product management to provide ongoing feedback from customers

Ensure close collaboration with the marketing team to identify key marketing activities required to grow revenue

Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, sales, business administration, or a relevant field

Deep understanding of structured credit products, private credit markets, and corporate loan workflows

A minimum of 5 years’ experience in a similar role as Head or Director of Sales

In-depth knowledge of the capital markets fundamentals and best practices

Prior experience selling to corporate credit or CLO market participants (e.g., asset managers, private credit funds, CLO managers, or investment banks)

Excellent analytical, negotiation, interpersonal and leadership skills

Outstanding written and verbal communication skills

Ability to travel within North America

Self-motivated team player who is creative, has fresh ideas and is a self-initiated learner

Enjoys working closely with customers to ensure complete satisfaction

Base Salary Range: $200,000 - $250,000 40-45% Annual Bonus Target

About Us

Morningstar DBRS is a leading provider of independent rating services and opinions for corporate and sovereign entities, financial institutions, and project and structured finance instruments globally. Rating more than 4,000 issuers and 60,000 securities, it is one of the top four credit rating agencies in the world.

Morningstar DBRS empowers investor success by bringing more transparency and a much-needed diversity of opinion in the credit rating industry. Our approach and size allow us to be nimble enough to respond to customers' needs in their local markets, but large enough to provide the necessary expertise and resources they require. Market innovators choose to work with us because of our agility, tech-forward approach, and exceptional customer service.

Morningstar DBRS is the next generation of credit ratings.

Compensation and Benefits

At Morningstar we believe people are at their best when they are at their healthiest. That’s why we champion your wellness through a wide-range of programs that support all stages of your personal and professional life. Here are some examples of the offerings we provide:

• Financial Health
  • 75% 401k match up to 7%
  • Stock Ownership Potential
  • Company provided life insurance - 1x salary commission
• Physical Health
  • Comprehensive health benefits (medical/dental/vision) including potential premium discounts and company-provided HSA contributions (up to $500-$2,000 annually) for specific plans and coverages
  • Additional medical Wellness Incentives - up to $300-$600 annual
  • Company-provided long- and short-term disability insurance
• Emotional Health
  • Trust-Based Time Off
  • 6-week Paid Sabbatical Program
  • 6-Week Paid Family Caregiving Leave
  • Competitive 8-24 Week Paid Parental Bonding Leave
  • Adoption Assistance
  • Leadership Coaching & Formal Mentorship Opportunities
  • Annual Education Stipend
  • Tuition Reimbursement
• Social Health
  • Charitable Matching Gifts program
  • Dollars for Doers volunteer program
  • Paid volunteering days
  • 15 Employee Resource & Affinity Groups

If you receive and accept an offer from us, we require that personal and any related investments be disclosed confidentiality to our Compliance team (days vary by region). These investments will be reviewed to ensure they meet Code of Ethics requirements. If any conflicts of interest are identified, then you will be required to liquidate those holdings immediately. In addition, dependent on your department and location of work certain employee accounts must be held with an approved broker (for example all, U.S. employee accounts). If this applies and your account(s) are not with an approved broker, you will be required to move your holdings to an approved broker.

Morningstar’s hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to work remotely and collaborate in-person each week. While some positions are available as fully remote, we’ve found that we’re at our best when we’re purposely together on a regular basis, typically three days each week. A range of other benefits are also available to enhance flexibility as needs change. No matter where you are, you’ll have tools and resources to engage meaningfully with your global colleagues.