McGraw Hill Financial has roped in Citi's Securities and Fund Services (SFS) business head Neeraj Sahai as president of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, world's largest rating firm, the company said in a filing. His appointment will be effective from January 6, 2014.
Sahai, 56 years old, succeeds Douglas Peterson, who became president and chief executive officer of McGraw Hill Financial on November 1, 2013. At Citi, Sahai also acts as chief fiduciary officer of Citigroup.
"He (Sahai) has significant experience serving global capital markets. His insights, leadership and background in driving growth, as well as in risk, control and governance will be enormously valuable to Standard & Poor's Rating Services, to market participants and to credit markets,” according to Peterson.
Sahai began his career at Citi in 1984 and has been leading SFS since 2005. From 2002 to 2005, he was chief financial officer of Citi's Global Transaction Services. Sahai was head of audit and risk review for Citi's Capital Markets and Banking businesses. He has also served several other roles with Citi, US and early in his career, he held a number of positions of increasing responsibility with Citi in India.
Sahai obtained a bachelor's degree in economics with honors and a master's degree in economics from the University of Delhi, an MBA from Clarkson University and completed the Wharton Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, part of McGraw Hill Financial, is the world's leading provider of independent credit risk research and benchmarks. It has over 1,400 credit analysts in 23 countries. The group owns majority stake in CRISIL in India and recently McGraw Hill Financial Inc acquired additional 15.1 per cent stake in CRISIL Ltd for Rs 1,290 crore ($214 million) through a voluntary open offer, increasing its stake in the rating agency to 67.8 per cent.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
