Director, Data Sales - Strategic Accounts

Location: New York

The Director of Data Sales - Strategic Accounts is a revenue-focused role responsible for maximizing the value and growth of CME Group's most strategic data clients within the Strategic Partner Program. This role is critical for driving revenue, ensuring high retention rates, and fostering deep, multi-faceted partnerships. The Director will own the full lifecycle for high-value accounts, acting as the primary contact to deliver a unified and responsive customer experience.

The core focus is on expanding our Data Services commercial footprint through trust, strategic alignment, and a deep understanding of customer needs, while proactively identifying and capturing new business opportunities.
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* Key Responsibilities:

**** Strategic Account & Revenue Growth:
* Own the full Data and Analytics commercial lifecycle for high-value strategic clients, from opportunity identification and negotiation to execution and expansion.
* Gather insights from top-tier clients to inform the development of new data products, improve CME positioning, and enhance understanding of the competitive data landscape.
* Lead negotiations of complex commercial deals, focusing on structuring and closing the most appropriate commercial programs that reduce administrative friction and create new selling opportunities.
* Act as the primary commercial contact and trusted partner for CME Data Services, ensuring high client retention while aggressively pursuing upsell and cross-sell opportunities across CME Group's data products and solutions, with a focus on long term revenue growth.
* Actively participate as part of a global account coverage team to promote cross-introductions between the data business and the markets trading business alongside additional data services, presenting a unified and holistic value proposition to clients. Holistic Client & Vendor Partnership:
* Develop a deep and comprehensive understanding of each client's business, corporate goals, market trends, and competitive landscape to position CME Group as an indispensable partner.
* Cultivate deep, strategic partnerships with critical data vendors, leveraging their customer-facing teams to scale CME's Sales & Marketing reach, drive product uptake, and establish essential commercial relationships with senior leaders within their organizations.
* Understand, identify, and communicate client needs, trends, and behaviors to Data Services Business Line Managers and other stakeholders, thereby contributing to CME Group’s Data Services product design and development strategy.
* Proactively communicate product launches, fee, and policy changes, to keep clients informed and improve their overall experience.
* Expand relationships with strategic customers through regular, high-impact touchpoints, providing valuable intelligence and insights on their CME data utilization and market trends.
* Establish dialogue between Customer and CME Leadership, while coordinating education to the customer regarding the business plans for CME’s data products and services. Account Management, Sales Execution & Internal Alignment:
* Ensure timely resolution of issues such as reporting, invoice/billing inquiries/disputes, and policy/agreement matters.
* Actively participate in campaigns for pricing, policies, and the strategic sales of new data products and solutions to top-tier accounts.
* Develop and execute a holistic account plan that maps client usage and needs across all CME Data Services offerings and identifies key client decision-makers with whom to build relationships.
* Proactively conduct regular education sessions to ensure clients clearly understand market data policies.
* Collaborate closely with internal teams, including Data Services Product Team, Legal, Finance,  BI Analysis, Audits, and Global Operations (Global Market Solutions and Services and Global Command Center), to orchestrate seamless support and execution for strategic clients, while minimizing the number of customer handoffs and touchpoints.
* Partner closely with transaction sales teams e.g. Client Development & Sales (CD&S) and Retail Sales relationship managers to support a holistic CME Group footprint with top-tier…