Senior Associate, Data Operations & Reporting (Data Governance)

Ares Operations•New York, NY

About The Position

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry. SUMMARY Ares is seeking a Senior Associate to join the Investment Operations team with a focus on private debt asset onboarding, document-driven security setup, and data quality across loan and note investments. This role will partner closely with Deal, Portfolio Management, Trading, Legal, Compliance, Fund Accounting, Performance, and Technology to ensure accurate setup and ongoing maintenance of private debt instruments. The ideal candidate brings strong experience reading credit agreements, note purchase agreements, and related deal documentation and translating those terms into complete and accurate security master workflows in platforms such as DealCloud and AlphaStream.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or another business-related discipline.
Minimum of 5-7 years of relevant experience in investment operations, middle office, security master, onboarding, or asset data management within a credit-focused investment manager, bank, or alternative asset management platform.
Direct experience supporting private debt, bank loans, privately originated credit, or note investments.
Demonstrated ability to read and operationalize legal documentation, including credit agreements, note purchase amendments, amendments, and funding notices.
Hands-on experience with DealCloud, AlphaStream, or comparable private markets / credit operations platforms.
Strong PowerPoint Skills for polished presentation and project/status reporting
Strong understanding of private debt instrument structures, lifecycle events, and data attributes required for accounting, valuation, performance, and compliance workflows.
Experience coordinating across front office, legal, operations, accounting, and technology stakeholders in a fast-paced environment.
Strong knowledge of private credit products, including term loans, revolvers, delayed draw facilities, unitranche structures, and privately placed notes.
Excellent attention to detail and the ability to extract key terms from lengthy legal documents and translate them into accurate operational data points.
Sound judgment in identifying ambiguities in documentation and escalating issues appropriately for resolution.
Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple live transactions, competing deadlines, and ongoing portfolio maintenance tasks.
Proven communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with investment professionals, legal counsel, fund accounting, compliance, and technology teams.
Advanced Excel skills; experience with data analysis, reconciliations, and process documentation.
A hands-on, solutions-oriented mindset with the ability to improve workflows and strengthen controls in a growing private debt platform.
High degree of accountability, professionalism, and comfort operating in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience at an alternative asset manager is strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Review and interpret credit agreements, note purchase agreements, prospectus, amendments, borrowing base certificates, and related legal documentation to identify the terms required for operational setup and ongoing maintenance.
Set up new private debt investments, including loans, structured credit assets, CML, RML, Private Placements, and other credit instruments, within internal systems and downstream books and records platforms.
Capture and maintain key economic and reference terms such as issuer, borrower, guarantor, facility type, spread, base rate, floor, maturity, payment frequency, day count, amortization, original issue discount, fees, call protection, PIK and covenant-related attributes.
Work with Compliance to review structure charts and maintain legal entity related to the obligor
Collaborate with the different strategies for any additional business and regulatory requirements to maintain new user defined fields
Leverage DealCloud and AlphaStream to onboard investments, maintain deal and security level data, and support the integrity of the private debt investment record throughout the lifecycle of each asset.
Coordinate with investment professionals, legal, operations, and external counterparties to resolve discrepancies between executed documents, internal approvals, and system setup requirements.
Partner with portfolio managers, traders, and investment teams to ensure timely and accurate setup of new deals ahead of funding, settlement, and portfolio reporting deadlines.
Perform quality control reviews of newly onboarded assets and document-driven changes to ensure completeness, consistency, and auditability across platforms and downstream consumers.
Develop and maintain operating procedures, data standards, and control checklists for document review, security setup, and private debt reference data.
Work with technology and data teams to improve onboarding workflows, reduce manual touchpoints, and enhance integrations between document review processes and platforms such as IVP SecMaster, DealCloud and AlphaStream.
Support reconciliation and remediation efforts across systems, including identifying exceptions, researching root causes, and driving timely correction of inaccurate or incomplete deal and security data.
Participate in project management and data governance workstreams
Produce management reporting and metrics around onboarding timeliness, setup quality, data exceptions, and operational risk items related to private debt assets.
Help train junior team members and offshore resources on document interpretation, setup standards, and control processes for private debt investments.