Deven Sharma to quit as S&P President
Taking Sharma's place will be Citibank Chief Operating Officer Douglas Peterson, 53, who will become President of Standard & Poor's effective September 12.
Sharma, 55, will take on a special assignment working on S&P's strategic portfolio review "until the end of the year, when he will leave the company to pursue other opportunities," S&P's parent company McGraw Hill said here.
Sharma joined Standard & Poor's in 2006 as Executive Vice-President, Investment Services and Global Sales, and was named President in 2007.
Before joining S&P, he was Executive Vice-President, Global Strategy, at The McGraw-Hill Companies for five years.
He had joined the McGraw-Hill Companies in 2002 from Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management consulting company, where he was a partner.
Announcing the change, McGraw-Hill Companies Chairman, President and CEO Harold McGraw said he had turned to Sharma four years ago during one of the "most difficult times facing S&P in the midst of the financial crisis".
Sharma's background as head of S&P's investment services and head of McGraw-Hill's global strategy "brought the right kind of skills to address the situation", McGraw said.
"I particularly want to thank Deven for his dedicated leadership of S&P. Today, S&P is a stronger company, whose 1,300 global analysts are sharply focused on the quality, independence and transparency of S&P's research and analytics," McGraw added.
Sharma said, "It has been a privilege to serve as the President of S&P and I am proud of what we as an organisation have achieved over the past four years. As McGraw-Hill continues its portfolio review, I will work closely with the leadership team to find ways to create even more shareholder value."
Standard & Poor's was split into two separate organisations last year -- S&P, the credit ratings service, and McGraw-Hill Financial -- to enable both organisations to serve investors and customers more effectively.
"Sharma assisted us with the creation of these two high-growth segments and was then ready for new challenges. Accordingly, we began a process to identify a new leader for S&P," the company said.
Sharma was thrust into the international spotlight when S&P made its unprecedented decision to downgrade the US long-term sovereign credit rating from the top-notch ''AAA'' level for the first time ever since a rating was assigned to the world's largest economy.
Sharma led from the front and defended S&P's move when the US administration took up cudgels against the ratings agency, terming its analysis flawed and questioning its credibility and integrity.
Sharma holds a bachelor's degree from the Birla Institute of Technology in Jharkhand, a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a doctoral degree in Business Management from Ohio State University.
He did his schooling in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand.
PTI