Finance Associate Director, Sales Compensation MI (Data Architecture & Strategy)

About the Role: Grade Level (for internal use): 12 Role Overview: The Finance Associate Director, Sales Compensation (Data Architecture & Strategy) serves as the primary business partner for the S&P Global Market Intelligence division, focusing on data architecture, database building, and continuous systems maintenance. This position sits at the intersection of Finance, Sales Operations, and Technology. You will be responsible for gathering sales performance data from various source systems, evaluating and deploying optimal database tools, and constructing a centralized single source of truth for commission calculations and commercial reporting. Operating as a key advisor to Sales leadership, Commissions, and Systems Analytics, you will translate complex commercial strategies into scalable data structures, troubleshoot systemic data errors, and ensure all commission operations run on a clean, validated, and SOX-compliant foundation. Responsibilities and Impact: This role is central to establishing a clean, scalable, and fully controlled data architecture for S&P Global Market Intelligence's sales compensation operations. By serving as both architect and governor of our single source of truth, the Finance Manager ensures reliable commission calculations, robust audit compliance, and trusted strategic reporting for leadership. • Manage, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of data and compensation analysts by defining goals, allocating resources, and fostering technical excellence and continuous improvement. • Own the full data platform lifecycle for extremely large, complex datasets: lead database build-out, schema design, tool selection, and ongoing maintenance to support commission calculations and sales reporting. • Design and implement automated reconciliation and standardized adjustment processes to ensure data integrity, accuracy, and audit-ready change management. • Partner with Business Intelligence and Systems Analytics teams to shape Data Warehouse architecture, ETL workflows, and scalable infrastructure that supports reliable downstream analytics. • Translate complex commercial contracts into structured, reusable data constructs that integrate cleanly into operational systems and reporting workflows. • Establish, document, and enforce enterprise data governance—covering data health, traceability, and operational consistency—across the organization. • Govern audit trails and automated validation models so every data change is fully traceable and SOX-compliant, and so calculations run on validated inputs. • Produce and communicate sales performance analytics and data-quality metrics for senior leadership, highlighting trends, risks, and root causes. • Communicate complex data and architecture in clear plain English for sales reps and leaders, resolving data-related questions and driving adoption of correct processes. • Serve as the first point of contact for sales leadership; proactively detect and resolve data anomalies (e.g., double-counted revenue, incorrect territory mapping) before they impact calculations. • Lead end-to-end pipeline and calculation troubleshooting with Commissions and Systems Analytics to ensure clean, validated data foundations. • Lead process design and standardization by converting ambiguous legacy workflows into documented SOPs and clear SLAs. What We’re Looking For: Basic Required Qualifications: • 10+ years of relevant experience in sales compensation, data architecture, data governance, financial systems, sales operations, or a related field, including experience leading and developing high-performing analytical teams. • Database & Technical Mastery: Deep hands-on experience in database building, schema design, database maintenance, data warehousing, ETL processes, and advanced SQL querying across very large and complex data environments. • Tooling & Technology Selection: Proven ability to identify, evaluate, and implement tools and technologies that consolidate disparate data sources into a unified single source of truth for commissions, sales performance analytics, and reporting. • Automation & Reconciliation: Practical experience with script-based reconciliation or automation tools such as VBA, Python/Pandas, SQL, Alteryx, or equivalent methods to rapidly reconcile large dataset pipelines and identify calculation or data integrity issues. • Governance & Controls: Proven track record establishing and enforcing data governance policies, automated reconciliation frameworks, standardized adjustment protocols, territory hierarchies, validation models, and SOX-compliant audit trails. • Commercial Deal Translation: Ability to interpret complex commercial deal structures, including joint/split deals and strategic accounts, and translate them into clean, structured, repeatable data frameworks for system processing. • Business Intelligence & Executive Reporting: Experience developing reporting, dashboards, and data health metrics in Power BI, with the ability to present insights, risks, and trends to senior leadership. • Cross-Functional Partnership: Experience partnering closely with Business Intelligence, Systems Analytics, Commissions, and Sales Operations teams to troubleshoot data pipelines, support scalable infrastructure, and ensure calculations run on clean, validated data. • Process Design & Standardization: Demonstrated ability to transform ambiguous or legacy workflows into documented SOPs, clear SLAs, and repeatable operational processes. • Translational & Stakeholder Skills: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to explain complex database architecture, data issues, and commission logic in plain English to sales reps, managers, directors, and senior commercial stakeholders. • Proactive Problem Solver: Strong ability to identify and resolve revenue anomalies, double-counting, territory mapping issues, and other data risks before they impact commission execution. What’s In It For You? Our Mission: A…