Morningstar Australasia Appoints Heather Dawson as Head of Sales & Distribution

Morningstar Australasia Pty Limited, a subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, has appointed Heather Dawson as Head of Sales & Distribution. Dawson oversees Morningstar’s sales and distribution efforts in Australia and New Zealand.

“Heather will be a key member of our management team in Australia, and I’m excited to be working with her,” Heather Brilliant, CFA, Chief Executive Officer of Morningstar Australasia, said. “She’s a senior business leader with a proven track record in sales leadership, empowering sales teams to perform their best and achieve outstanding results, and has a passion for improving the investor experience. She’ll make a significant contribution to developing new business relationships and deepening our existing ones, enabling our Australian clients to identify the Morningstar solutions that will help them add value to their businesses and produce better outcomes for investors.”

Dawson has more than 20 years’ experience in business leadership roles in the financial services industry in Australia and the United States. She served most recently as a consultant and mentor in leadership and sales excellence and as co-producer for the inaugural Conscious Capitalism Australia Summit, a not-for-profit, member-based organisation supporting and advancing the growth of the conscious capitalism movement.

From 2008 to 2013, she was a Partner at Mercer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC), where she served as Sales Leader and led business growth and management for the Mercer Super Trust and Mercer New Zealand KiwiSaver scheme, including sales growth, institutional client and member services, and marketing and product development.

She also worked at Russell Investments in Sydney as Managing Director, Retirement Services, leading product development, client services, and member services teams and providing strategic leadership and management responsibility for the Russell SuperSolution Master Trust institutional retirement savings solution. She also worked as Director of National Sales Development, Retirement and Investor Services for the Principal Financial Group (NYSE: PFG) in the United States.

Dawson has a bachelor of science degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is an alumnus of Chief Executive Women (CEW), and is a Founding and Advisory Board Member of Financial Executive Women (FEW) in Australia.