Associate Director

**About the Role**:
**Grade Level (for internal use)**: 12
The Team
Our team consists of 21 analysts located across London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, and Madrid, led by an Analytical Manager. We specialize in the Retail, Food, and Leisure industries, which encompass food manufacturers, apparel and specialty retail, restaurants, travel, lodging, amusement parks, gaming, and sports companies. These sectors are significantly influenced by fluctuating consumption patterns, local regulations, and event risks. A considerable number of the companies we evaluate are owned by private equity investors, leading to highly leveraged capital structures and a substantial proportion of high-yield credits. Consequently, the work environment is fast-paced and dynamic, driven by continuous credit events arising from shifts in consumer behaviour, operational performance, regulatory changes, dividend recapitalizations, refinancings, and M&A activities.
The Impact
This is an exceptional opportunity to establish yourself as a recognized expert in credit analysis while joining our team during a period of rapid growth in new ratings within the Retail, Food, and Leisure industries. This growth is driven by relatively low interest rates, strong consumption demand—especially for leisure activities—and the necessity for companies to issue debt to finance new investments, particularly in emerging technologies. S&P Global Ratings is recognized as the leading credit rating agency in these sectors.
What You Stand to Gain
This role offers the opportunity to operate with extensive autonomy, requiring mínimal direction while building your reputation as a trusted analyst on complex credit issues, large client relationships, and strategic analytical projects.

**Responsibilities**:
Contribute decisively to Rating Committee discussions, using your analytical perspective to advise on complex credit issues and influence outcomes based on thorough analysis
Mentor and develop junior analysts in their core analytical responsibilities, providing guidance on operational processes to achieve defined goals and objectives
Collaborate strategically with the Sector Lead as an active participant and spokesperson with investors, building and maintaining relationships with peers outside of your immediate team and function
Manage resources effectively to deliver sustainable credit analysis outcomes, considering multiple possible courses of action and making informed recommendations
All employees are required to work from the office a minimum of 2 days per week.
What We're Looking For
**Basic Required Qualifications**:
Bachelor's degree in Business, Economics, Finance, Accounting, or related field
A S&P employee at this level typically has 6-10 years in corporate credit analysis for high-yield entities from investment institutions, asset managers, commercial/investment banks, audit firms, or rating agencies
Demonstrated expertise in credit analysis with broad knowledge of specialized financial fields and their market interrelationships
Proven ability to operate with autonomy and make decisions where clear parameters exist
**Additional Preferred Qualifications**:
MBA, CFA, or advanced degree demonstrating commitment to professional development
Familiarity with Retail, Food, or Leisure sectors, including understanding of consumption patterns, regulatory impacts, and event risks
Experience with highly leveraged capital structures and private equity-owned entities
Fluency in German will be a distinct advantage for this EMEA-focused role
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About S&P Global Ratings
At S&P Global Ratings, our analyst-driven credit ratings, research, and sustainable finance opinions provide critical insights that are essential to translating complexity into clarity so market participants can uncover opportunities and make decisions with conviction. By bringing transparency to the market through high-quality independent opinions on creditworthiness, we enable growth across a wide variety of organizations, including businesses, governments, and institutions.
**S&P Global Ratings is a division of S&P Global (NYSE**: SPGI). S&P Global is the world’s foremost provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets. With every one of our offerings, we help many of the world’s leading organizations navigate the economic landscape so they can plan for tomorrow, today.
What’s In It For You?
**Our Purpose**:
Progress is not a self-starter. It requires a catalyst to be set in motion. Information, imagination, people, technology-the right combination can unlock possibility and change the world.
Our world is in transition and getting more complex by the day. We push past expected observations and seek out new levels of understanding so that we can help companies, governments and individuals make an impact on tomorrow. At S&P Global we transform data into Essential Intelligence®, pinpointing risks and opening possibilities.