Quality Assurance Director, Editorial recruitment
Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is a leading global provider of energy and metals information. With nearly a century of business experience, Platts serves customers across more than 150 countries. From 14 offices worldwide, we serve the oil, natural gas, electricity, nuclear power, coal, petrochemical and metals markets. Platts' real time news, pricing, analytical services, and conferences help markets operate with transparency and efficiency. Traders, risk managers, analysts, and industry leaders depend upon Platts to help them make better trading and investment decisions.
The position is responsible for creating and leading a global team charged with managing in-business control activities for Platts' Markets Assessments group to manage risk and ensure effective controls are in place across the function to provide assurance from a first line of defense risk and compliance standpoint. The director leads work to address day-to-day control matters, and performs periodic testing to help ensure that editorial practices, systems, and pricing standards are dynamic and responsive to customer and market needs, and well-positioned to meet and exceed any potential future regulatory requirements. The director will provide advice and assistance on enhancements to quality aspects of a range of operational activities included those related to production, editorial operations and data integrity. The MAQ represents first-line accountability for ensuring that the Platts Markets Assessments group as a whole is adhering to company policies and meeting its own standards for quality and control.
Key responsibilities:
- Assess the validity and quality of "models" employed in price assessment activities; models are defined as including formula/macro-based spreadsheets, mathematical computations, rule-based formulas and the like.
- Examine assessments to look for outliers, flatliners, and other telltale signs of likely issues that bear investigation by operating sectors and/or Price Group.
- Where Market-on-Close assessment processes are used, review all instances of pulled bids / offers / broken trades in eWindow; and provide analysis of frequency and other trends in regard to these events.
- Where averages and indexes are created, review all instances of rejected transactional data and provide analysis of frequency and other trends within these events. Additionally, ensure that supporting documentation for these actions is provided.
- Monitor methodology implementation process to assure all steps are followed in accordance with company policies and standards.
- Review source lists to determine if they are being regularly updated and expanded.
- Review How-To Guides to ensure completeness and consistency with company policy and standards.
- Review counter-party management decisions (admission, suspension, disputes between customers) to ensure processes, company policies and standards are followed.
- Compare published data to published methodologies to ensure there is a methodology for every assessment.
- Manage the recording of subscriber complaints and ensure these are managed in accordance with company policies and standards.
- Study MOC participation levels to produce internal reports on participation trends.
- Review data analysis generated in response to third party requests to ensure completeness and accuracy.
- Develop and provide regular, periodic reporting to senior management, including trend analysis of tracked issues.
Skills
- Solid understanding of risk management principles
- Excellent at identifying improvements and efficiencies and implementing processes that continually promote productivity and quality improvements
- Excellent critical thinking skills and expert at problem/conflict resolution
- Strong technical competency and computer skills coupled with a good knowledge and utilization of Microsoft Excel; Microsoft Office suite (Word, Powerpoint, Outlook...); an bility to adopt new technologies and champion those changes internally
- BA or graduate degree
- Excellent communication skills that include good listening, clear writing style; and strong verbal skills. The ability to communicate across a wide range of groups and personalities internally and externally, and at senior levels of management
- Strong leadership ability which utilizes influence, and promotes team collaboration and development, as well as personal accountability. Enthusiastic team player with strong relationship and empathy building skills who is capable of selling reasons for change/plans to a diverse range of relationships
- Strong numeracy skills, including an understanding of statistics