Credit Benchmark Appoints Michael Crumpler as Chief Executive Officer


London and New York, July 18, 2023 – Credit Benchmark, a global leader in the credit risk data and analytics space, has announced the appointment of Michael Crumpler as Chief Executive Officer. Donal Smith, current CEO and Co-Founder, will be remaining on in his capacity as Executive Chairman working alongside Michael and the executive team.

Michael’s primary focus will be to guide Credit Benchmark through its next phase of growth by expanding its global client footprint in key strategic markets and further solidifying the company’s position as the provider of choice for unique and compelling credit risk products across capital markets.  He will also be focused on building-out Credit Benchmark’s analytics and product functions in order to provide world-class solutions that will allow clients to more efficiently and effectively manage risk.

Michael Crumpler said: “I’m honoured to be appointed CEO and am grateful for the opportunity to lead Credit Benchmark through its next exciting chapter of expansion. We have such an incredible concept, a very talented team and a real opportunity to become an industry-standard across capital markets.”

“We have grown so much since I joined in late 2016 and I’m confident with the right focus and execution, we will be able to grow our business across our core markets, expand our efforts in new segments and continue to leverage emerging technologies such as AI to deliver best in class analytics for our clients.”

Donal Smith, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman said: 

“We are delighted that Michael has accepted the role of CEO. His vast experience and detailed knowledge of our customers and his experience in building Credit Benchmark made him the perfect choice for this position.”

Michael Crumpler joined Credit Benchmark in 2016 and has served in several key executive roles including most recently as Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Head of Risk.  He is also a member of the Executive Committee. 

He has been instrumental in growing the client base, which now includes a global network of more than 40 financial institutions, including 17 Global Systematically Important Banks (G-SIBs).

As COO he helped drive 25% revenue growth, identified and developed key new market segments and delivered world-class customer retention rates.  He has also helped to lead key initiatives across marketing, analytics and research and oversaw key strategic third-party partnerships, namely with Bloomberg.

Michael previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Credit Risk Management & Advisory Group, covering a diverse portfolio of entities across the natural resources and public finance sectors.  He spent more than a decade in other credit risk and banking roles at Barclays, Dexia and Moody’s Investors Service, focused primarily on energy, infrastructure and public finance.

Michael holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a Bachelor of English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in New York with his wife and two children.

About Credit Benchmark

With data based on the views of more than 20,000 of the market’s most respected, reliable and regulated credit risk analysts, Credit Benchmark provides unique Credit Consensus Ratings and Aggregate Analytics.

More than 40 financial institutions, including 17 of the world’s largest Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) contribute their internal credit risk ratings to Credit Benchmark, which then anonymises and aggregates all the data, to make the views of far more analysts publicly available than ever before.

Covering over 80,000 entities, 90% of which are unrated by any other publicly available traditional ratings methods, Credit Benchmark’s credit risk data spans the US, Continental Europe, Switzerland, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Credit Benchmark’s insights are trusted by the Bank of England, HM Treasury and a host of the largest financial institutions in the world, either to benchmark their own internal credit risk analysis against those of a global peer group, or to simply gain accurate credit risk views where none were previously available.

Media Contact information

Damien Fletcher / Andrew Dunn
Streets Consulting (Representing Credit Benchmark)
[email protected]; [email protected]
Telephone: +44 020 7073 2649

Laura Saville
Head of Marketing
[email protected]
Telephone: +44 020 7099 4322


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Credit Benchmark brings together internal credit risk views from over 40 leading global financial institutions. The contributions are anonymized, aggregated, and published in the form of consensus ratings and aggregate analytics to provide an independent, real-world perspective of credit risk. Risk and investment professionals at banks, insurance companies, asset managers and other financial firms use the data for insights into the unrated, monitoring and alerting within their portfolios, benchmarking, assessing and analyzing trends, and fulfilling regulatory requirements and capital.