Finance manager, sales compensation (strategic center of excellence)

About the Role:

Grade Level (for internal use): 11

The Finance Manager, Sales Compensation (Strategic Center of Excellence) will serve as a strategic and governance advisor, bringing executive presence, strong policy expertise, and a deep understanding of sales compensation strategy. This role will guide the organization through complex business changes while designing legally sound, scalable sales compensation policies. In addition to core compensation governance, the Finance Manager will oversee all SPIFF and supplemental incentive programs, including KPI collection, validation, and calculation processes to ensure accuracy, consistency, and alignment with business objectives.

By applying expertise in sales behavior, incentive design, and SFDC infrastructure, this role will develop effective dispute resolution processes, create engaging training resources, and translate complex compensation methodologies into clear, actionable, and commercially relevant guidance for sales leaders.

Responsibilities and Impact:

This role is the cornerstone of governance, audit compliance, and strategic enablement for our sales compensation operations. By serving as the authoritative voice on policy architecture, managing complex integrations, and ensuring exactness in KPI and SPIFF calculations, the Finance Manager ensures our incentive strategies are seamlessly translated into operational reality, driving both compliance and highly motivated sales behaviors across the organization.

• Establish clear, legally robust, and unambiguous global sales compensation policies.
• Define global approval matrices and uphold governance standards in partnership with senior Sales, People Partner, and Finance stakeholders.
• Lead the assessment, mapping, and integration of incentive plans and personnel structures during corporate transactions and restructurings.
• Ensure compensation continuity, policy alignment, and operational readiness during periods of organizational change.
• Manage the end-to-end collection, validation, and calculation of all sales compensation KPIs, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and alignment with plan requirements.
• Oversee and execute calculations for all SPIFFs and custom supplemental incentives, ensuring accuracy, data integrity, and alignment with commercial milestones.
• Analyze and present performance trends, risks, exceptions, and opportunities for process or incentive optimization to senior leadership.
• Manage escalated compensation disputes and define comprehensive dispute-resolution SLAs and policies.
• Ensure issues are resolved accurately, consistently, and with a customer-centric approach to supporting sales representatives and leaders.
• Evaluate custom supplemental incentives and provide advisory support to commercial and finance stakeholders.
• Ensure incentive structures are clear, measurable, operationally executable, and aligned with intended sales behaviors.
• Draft step-by-step Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and governance workflows.
• Project manage multi-phased initiatives, including the integration of custom incentives, to ensure deliverables remain on track, well-documented, and operationally sustainable.
• Build interactive training libraries for sales representatives and ensure seamless rollout, adoption, and tracking of required compliance and compensation training.

Compensation/Benefits Information:

(This section is only applicable to US candidates) S&P Global states that the anticipated base salary range for this position is $85,773 to $153,091. 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.

What We're Looking For:

Basic Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of relevant experience in sales compensation, finance governance, audit, sales operations, or corporate incentive strategy.
• Strong background in governance, policy design, internal controls, audit trails, and risk mitigation across complex corporate compensation structures.
• Expert-level capability in writing clear, legally robust, and unambiguous sales compensation policies and terms and conditions.
• Hands-on proficiency in collecting, validating, and calculating sales compensation KPIs, SPIFFs, and complex supplemental incentives with high precision.
• Proven track record evaluating, mapping, and integrating incentive plans and personnel structures during corporate transactions, spinoffs, and restructurings.
• Ability to uphold governance standards, defend approval matrices, and negotiate policy changes with senior Sales, People Partners, and Finance executives.
• Strong ability to translate complex mathematical compensation rules into simple, commercial, and motivating terms for sales representatives and leaders.
• Strategic and operational understanding of Salesforce workflows, case queues, routing rules, and dashboard reporting.
• Expert skill in drafting detailed SOPs, governance workflows, and training materials, and build interactive training libraries and support scalable rollout.
• Detail-oriented approach to audit compliance, matrix tracking, dispute resolution, and query management, with a supportive and customer-centric mindset.

Right to Work Requirements for US location:

This role is limited to persons with indefinite right to work in the United States.

What’s In It For You?

Our Mission: Advancing Essential Intelligence. Our People: We're more than 35,000 strong worldwide—so we're able to understand nuances while having a broad perspective. Our team is driven by curiosity and a shared belief that Essential Intelligence can help build a more prosperous future for us all.

Our Values:

Integrity, Discovery, Partnership Throughout our history, the world's leading organizations have relied on us for the Essential Intelligence they need to make confident decisions about the road ahead.

Benefits:

We take care of you, so you can take care of business. We care about our people. That’s why we provide everything you—and your career—need to thrive at S&P Global.

Global Hiring and Opportunity at S&P Global:

At S&P Global, we are committed to fostering a connected and engaged workplace where all individuals have access to opportunities based on their skills, experience, and contributions.

Recruitment Fraud Alert:

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Equal Opportunity Employer

S&P Global is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race/ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, marital status, military veteran status, unemployment status, or any other status protected by law.