is a leading provider of independent investment insights in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers and owners, retirement plan providers and sponsors and institutional investors in the debt and private capital markets. Committed to empowering investor success, Morningstar provides data and research insights on a wide range of investment offerings, including managed investment products, publicly listed companies, private capital markets, debt securities and real-time global market data. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with approximately $286 billion in assets under advisement and management.

Morningstar was founded in 1984 by current Chairman of the Board of Directors Joe Manseuto. While working as an analyst, Joe thought it was unfair that people did not have access to the same information as financial professionals. So, he hired a few people and set up shop in his apartment with the revolutionary idea of delivering high-quality investment research to everyone. In naming his new company, Joe was inspired by the last line of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, "The sun is but a morning star." In 1999, the company received investment from SoftBank and expanded its presence internationally and went public in 2005. Morningstar also grew by acquiring and adding adjacent businesses into its product offerings, which now include Morningstar Direct, Pitchbook, Wealth Platform, Advisor Workstation, Sustainalytics, Managed Accounts, Morningstar Office, DBRS Credit Ratings, Credit Analytics and Morningstar Investor.

The company remains headquartered where it was founded in Chicago, Illinois, but now it has more than 11,000 employees globally and operates through wholly- or majority-owned subsidiaries in 32 countries. The company had 2023 revenue of $2 billion and remains publicly traded on the NASDAQ as MORN, with a market cap of more than $13 billion.

Morningstar's mission to empower investor success is what drives employees forward and shapes the organizational culture. This mission-driven, highly collaborative culture ensures employees' talents are recognized and can drive change. Across offices worldwide, the company is invested in fostering a community where voices are heard, ideas matter and contributions are rewarded. The unique Morningstar Development Program helps employees expand their skills in every direction and ensures growth is not left to chance.

Position Description

Morningstar is a growth-minded company, having quickly scaled to $2 billion in revenue with aspirations to accelerate its pace of growth to $3 billion and beyond. Aligning the business strategy with a cohesive and market-sensitive people strategy is critical to scale, and Morningstar is hiring a Global Head of Business Partners, People & Culture to support this ongoing alignment. In this role, you will report directly to Chief People Officer Marie Trzupek Lynch and lead the Global People and Culture (P&C) Business Partner team. The People and Culture team recently completed and is delivering on a three-year strategic HR plan, which the Global Head of Business Partners, People and Culture will be expected to lead, engaging the Business Partner team to achieve its goals.

As the Global Head of Business Partners, People and Culture, you will be an influential leader and act as a champion of Morningstar's culture, people and philosophies. As the lead of the function, you will drive change and lead the global business partners to promote an engaged, inclusive and high-performing culture across business units and functions while supporting the business leaders to achieve profitable growth. This leader will evaluate the structure and capabilities of the team to ensure business objectives and leaders are being supported in a strategic and thoughtful way while also evaluating the overall business partner design across the globe for scalability and efficiency. You will help ensure Morningstar's people programs and processes are reliable, consistent, impactful and effective across geographies and business units.

The ideal candidate will be a highly collaborative leader who can form relationships and work through influence across a global, highly matrixed, nonhierarchical organization. You should have a depth of experience across multifunctional areas of HR, with the ability to support leaders across the business by directly aligning people programs with business needs. The ideal leader will have proven experience leading a global business partner function or a demonstrated background of increasing responsibility leading and managing an HR function that has a global reach. You should also have connection and a personal alignment with Morningstar's mission to empower investor success.

Position Location: Chicago, Illinois (hybrid model with three days per week in office)

Key Accountabilities

• Influence and guide business partners across all locations, creating synergies among the P&C Business Partner team and consistencies in the practice across all businesses.
• Help the P&C business partners foster a great work environment that allows employees to do their best by being a business-focused employee advocate, bringing empathy to interactions and focusing on an engaging and inclusive employee experience.
• Work closely with business leaders on P&C organizational strategies, including workforce planning, talent utilization, employee engagement, employee relations and change management.
• Assess the existing model and efficiencies across the team along with the global structure. Ensure Morningstar is set up for long-term success and that the P&C Business Partner team is structured appropriately to support that growth.
• Partner with domain leaders to create systematic and programmatic ways to deliver successful P&C programs, processes and initiatives.
• Partner with regional P&C leaders and country heads to maximize the efficiency of the business partner function.
• Drive processes that develop Morningstar's people talent, including employee development, retention and succession planning.
• Improve the global P&C business partner operating model, optimizing and empowering resources and allowing for ownership of program success. Shape a globally aligned model while accounting for regional nuances.
• Take a thoughtful and creative approach to helping P&C business partners solve problems-identifying solutions that align with Morningstar's people philosophies and work environment across the globe.
• Create and execute performance objectives to ensure businesses and P&C are aligned with the overall organizational strategy.
• Provide mentorship and support the development of the P&C business partners.
• Partner with the business partners and legal to address employee relations issues.

Knowledge Base and Experience

• Possesses true expertise as a senior leader of a business partner function, with demonstrated success contributing to a global HR strategy that directly enables better business performance. Knows best practices and can hit the ground running and make immediate impact.
• Experienced in multiple areas of HR, with a strong working knowledge of how each department interacts with business operations. Proactively advises business leaders in all functional areas of HR.
• Operated within a global organization. Understands how to work through influence across a widely distributed and matrixed organization.
• Worked within a data and analytics-centric business; consistently uses all available metrics and information to drive decision-making.
• Served as an HR leader in a complex, matrixed organization with multiple business units.
• Previous experience as a people leader in a rapidly growing and changing organization, as well as experience guiding people and a function through transformation.
• Experience presenting to Board of Directors is a plus. Experience regularly working with the Executive Leadership team is required.
• Knowledge of providing direction and guidance on employee relations matters.
• Project management and/or program development with implementation experience.
• Experience with Workday preferred.

Professional and Cultural Characteristics

• Personally aligned with Morningstar's work and mission of empowering investor success.
• Effectively builds, nurtures and develops working relationships; capable of working through influence in and across a widely distributed, matrixed organization.
• Effective at navigating through conflict and helping lead change management efforts through communication, transparency and personal accountability.
• Highly collaborative. Considers work to be a team sport and remains focused on team goals.
• Fast-paced and adaptable; comfortable managing, changing and pivoting when necessary to make things happen. Learns quickly and brings a solution-first mindset to issues.
• Willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work themselves; does not overly rely on delegation to get work done.
• Nonhierarchical and approachable, collaborates with individuals at all levels of the organization. A humble leader who owns their mistakes and learns from them.
• Transparent and highly communicative; informs others why decisions are being made and intentionally increases awareness at all levels.
• Data-oriented and analytical; confirms ideas through numbers and data.
• Brings a thoughtful and meaningful approach to change; remains focused on improvement but accounts for the nuances of the organization in that process.
• Accountable; can be held to goals and inspires the same dedication in others.
• Possesses a high level of conviction and confidence and can be relied upon to do the right thing as an ethical leader when managing conflict.
• Unwavering desire to meet and exceed company and P&C goals.
• Commitment to welcoming change and leading teams through it.
  

Qualifications and Compensation

• At least 15 years of progressive HR experience, including at least five years leading and managing an experienced HR team.
• The ability to travel as necessary to connect with the Business Partner team or business unit leaders.

Morningstar has retained Hanold Associates for this Global Head of Business Partners, People and Culture search.

Morningstar's hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to work remotely and collaborate in-person each week. We've found that we're at our best when we're purposely together on a regular basis, at least three days each week. A range of other benefits are also available to enhance flexibility as needs change. No matter where you are, you'll have tools and resources to engage meaningfully with your global colleagues.