About the Role:
Grade Level (for internal use):
12 The Team
We are a high-accountability, globally connected Sales Compensation team that values disciplined execution, a strong sense of urgency, and end-to-end ownership. We expect our people to understand the full lifecycle of their work, anticipate downstream impacts, and communicate outcomes with exceptional clarity, whether supporting our broad population of 1,500+ plan participants or partnering with C-level executives. We value precision, responsiveness, sound judgment, collaboration, and people who take ownership through to resolution.
Responsibilities and Impact
This role is the global owner of sales compensation operations — accountable for the accuracy, governance, and financial integrity of commission payments across the full end-to-end process. Combining financial modeling, process discipline, stakeholder partnership, and strong audit readiness, this Associate Director ensures commission payments are accurate, timely, transparent, and aligned with company policy and financial controls.
Lead and develop a team of compensation analysts and operations specialists — setting goals, maintaining accountability, and building a culture of precision, urgency, and end-to-end ownership, while overseeing timely and accurate resolution of plan participant queries across the global commission population.
Build and execute scenario modeling and stress-testing frameworks to forecast total plan spend and assess the financial impact of plan adjustments, structural redesigns, and macroeconomic shifts — generating and refining global payout estimates and compensation decision models to support budget alignment and annual target-setting.
Lead final validation and sign-off on global commission payroll processing runs — evaluating and authorising large payments, non-standard payouts, custom executive incentives, and approving custom withholding, recovery, non-recoverable draw, guarantee, and clawback protocols in partnership with Payroll, Legal, People Partners, and Compliance teams.
Sign off on monthly SOX and Audit controls — performing ongoing risk evaluations related to deal cancellations, retroactive adjustments, unauthorized overrides, and data integrity risks, while conducting variance analyses and automated sanity testing to ensure commission calculation accuracy at scale.
Partner with Legal and People Partners to resolve sensitive compensation disputes and high-value grievances — reviewing, evaluating, and approving calculation overrides, custom exception requests, and commission structures tied to Reductions in Force.
Translate complex commission formulas, crediting rules, and payout outcomes into clear, step-by-step explanations for sales representatives, managers, and senior leaders across the organisation.
Compensation and Benefits (US Candidates Only)
S&P Global states that the anticipated base salary range for this position is $104,435 to $182,604. Final base salary for this role will be based on the individual's geographic location, as well as experience level, skill set, training, licenses and certifications.
In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for an annual incentive plan. This role is eligible to receive additional S&P Global benefits. For more information on the benefits we provide to our employees, please visit: https://spgbenefits.com/benefit-summaries
What We Are Looking For
Basic Required Qualifications
Experience: 7+ years in sales compensation operations, finance governance, audit, or corporate financial modeling within a complex commission-paying environment, including 2+ years in a people leadership role managing analytical teams.
Sales Compensation Expertise: Proven knowledge of complex plan mechanics including quotas, accelerators, thresholds, caps, splits, crediting rules, draws, guarantees, clawbacks, recoveries, SPIFFs, and executive incentive structures.
Financial Modeling: Advanced Excel proficiency including nested logic, dynamic…