Head of Developing Markets/ Managing Director – Middle East – UAE – S&P; Global Ratings

Position Description

Head of Developing Markets/ Managing Director – Middle East – UAE – S&P; Global Ratings

Role Purpose:

The successful candidate will develop, communicate, and lead the execution of strategies to grow and improve the domestic ratings franchise across all ratings practices in developing markets in the Middle East.

The Impact:

The successful candidate will have the following impact:

• Establish medium-term strategic plans for each priority developing market country or region and obtain leadership endorsement and comprehensive support and engagement from all internal stakeholders.
• Execute an explicit activity-based roadmap to achieve the medium term strategic objectives, through: -

• Identifying market needs in terms of education, training, data, analysis, credit benchmarks, and so on, and assembling S&P; regional capabilities to fulfil market needs
• Establishing and/or expanding partnership arrangements with local credit ratings businesses. To include: board representation, joint marketing and business development initiatives, and so on.
• Negotiating minority and, where appropriate majority, equity participations in local credit ratings businesses.
• Building extensive personal and institutional relationships with governments, central banks, capital markets boards and other key institutions and individuals that will shape the future direction of each selected country’s financial and capital markets.

• Create strategic plans that contain extensive engagement from and cooperation with relevant analytical practices, country heads, Sales, Market Franchise Development personnel, Legal, Risk and other key stakeholders.
• Strategic plans will define sole and shared accountabilities and will be owned jointly with all relevant stakeholders, Regional ExCo’s, or local governance councils but lead by the Global Head of Developing Markets.

• Collaborating with S&P; Global divisions to advance our market positioning in each selected market. Knowledge sharing between divisions to facilitate flow of market feedback to the businesses.
• Aid in identifying market trends, client development, criteria development needs and client’s financial projections.

• Lead the execution of strategic plans to grow revenues through collaboration with analytical teams, Sales, Market Franchise Development and other functions. Use contacts developed in the market to open the door and assist in closing deals with the Sales team(s).
• Be a Spokesperson for the company representing S&P; in media and industry events
• Partner with Compliance to manage the regulatory relationship in your country or region
• Manage and oversee the P&L; of your country or region within the matrix of our business
• Fulfill a country head role in a ‘double hat’ capacity to the Head of Developing Markets role

The Career Opportunity :

The successful candidate will have the chance to be involved in the following:

• Internal alignment – Ensure strong coordination between analytical and Sales/Market Franchise Development and other functional teams in support of strategic goals for the identified developing markets.
• Developing country experts in support of strategic goals on identified countries/markets
• Support regional management and HR with selection, development, succession planning as well as motivating staff and promoting engagement.
• Leverage and maximize existing capabilities and co-ordination across geographies
• Be the head and the chief executive for Standard & Poor’s legal entities in the relevant market assuming P&L;, tax and accounting responsibilities and all other duties associated with the role.
• Contribute to the market’s successful matrix management, actively providing the feedback on local developments and needs to the corporate management
• Ensure organizational effectiveness and implement efficiencies
• Support an integrated management team to achieve most effective processes
• Ensure local customization of the broader corporate strategic priorities
• Be the internal champion to obtain necessary resources
• Promote cooperation between the business units and support functions
• Assess infrastructure needs (IT/Office space), initiate and defend business cases for change if need be
• Lead organizational change and internal communications programs for the location

The Team/Business:

S&P; Global Ratings is the world’s leading provider of credit ratings; our credit risk analyses, research and insights support the growth of transparent, liquid debt markets worldwide. We have more than 1 million credit ratings outstanding on entities and securities across a wide range of sectors. Our ratings are our opinions about issuers’ capacity and willingness to meet their financial obligations in full and on time. We provide other types of analyses and assessments that give our views of creditworthiness, which can be useful data points when planning acquisitions or other strategic initiatives. Our analytics look at sectors and situations ranging from sensitivity to changing market conditions, to recovery prospects if a default occurs. We also offer models created by our ratings analysts.

Qualifications:

• Degree educated and essentially related to economics, finance or business.
  
  
• MBA is preferred
  
  
• Deep knowledge and understanding of the domestic and cross border fixed income markets.
  
  
• In depth understanding of the S&P; value proposition, S&P; current capabilities and internal processes.
  
  
• Ability to translate/mediate between local market needs and S&P; capabilities.
  
  
• Ability to identify key ratings targets across all practices, market drivers/dynamics, conceptualize future product and service requirements and advocate service development to S&P.;
  
  
• Significant experience in financial services, preferably demonstrated in investor/issuer/intermediary communication.
  
  
• Ability to play a lead role in the development and enhancement of a team environment.
  
  
• Superior presentation, oral and written communication skills.
  
  
• Superior process orientation, business planning and development skills.

Apply to Job