Senior Manager, Brand and Competitive Intelligence Insights

The Senior Manager, Brand and Competitive Intelligence Insights will primarily lead the development, design, and ongoing buildout of Morningstar's Brand Research and Competitive Intelligence functions within the broader Market Research CoE. The position will be responsible for establishing a scalable, centralized approach to brand and competitive insights that supports Morningstar's evolving business needs, strengthens decision-making, and helps accelerate growth across the organization.

Working closely with the Brand team, this role will help define the operating structure, research roadmap, governance, and stakeholder engagement model for these two functions. The work will directly support overall Central Marketing OKRs to activate and scale the masterbrand as a growth multiplier, support Morningstar's growth through research-led content that will provide an edge in the marketplace, and develop our people & support inclusive culture, including through AI-enabled efficiencies.

A key part of this role will be to build a sustainable framework for how Morningstar measures brand health, monitors market and competitor movement, and translates those inputs into actionable recommendations for brand strategy, positioning, messaging, advertising, content, and GTM decisions. This position will work closely with Brand, Product Marketing, Content and Platforms, Strategic Account Marketing, Sales, and other internal stakeholders to ensure insights are timely, consistent, and impactful.

This position can based in our Chicago or NYC office with a required four days a week in office.

Specific responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Build upon and deepen existing Brand Research by creating a sustainable framework that is inclusive of research strategy, measurement framework, tracking architecture, cadence, and stakeholder intake process.

• Establish a strong, multi-faceted Competitive Intelligence capability, including ongoing market monitoring, competitor profiling, synthesis of competitive activity, and identification of strategic implications for Morningstar.

• Synthesize complex findings into clear, business-ready narratives that connect brand and competitor insights to strategic implications, actions, and recommendations.

• Present insights to senior stakeholders and help drive decision-making through regular briefings, planned readouts, and ad hoc strategic support.

• Support the broader Centralized Insights CoE vision by helping connect brand and competitive intelligence with other insight streams, including market research, AI insights, and UX/product learnings, where relevant.

• Identify opportunities to use AI and scalable workflows to improve efficiency, expand coverage, and create more accessible and searchable insights assets over time.

• Manage external research and intelligence partners as needed, ensuring methodologies, deliverables, and timelines meet Morningstar's standards for quality, rigor, and relevance.

Qualifications:

• Strong experience in brand research, competitive intelligence, or related strategic insights disciplines, ideally in a B2B, financial services, or complex enterprise environment.

• Demonstrated ability to build or scale a research function, including defining processes, governance, stakeholder workflows, and reporting rhythms.

• Deep understanding of brand measurement, message testing, perception tracking, and the strategic application of brand research to business decisions.

• Strong knowledge of competitive intelligence methods, including external monitoring via tools like Gartner, market synthesis, competitor profiling, and strategic analysis.

• Ability to connect research and intelligence outputs to business strategy, marketing choices, product decisions, and GTM priorities.

• Excellent analytical skills with the ability to synthesize quantitative and qualitative inputs into compelling narratives and clear recommendations.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with experience influencing senior partners across marketing, product, sales, and executive teams.

• Strong proficiency in Excel and other analysis and reporting tools; experience with visualization, survey platforms, or intelligence tracking systems is desirable.