NEW YORK, Nov. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- McGraw Hill Financial (NYSE: MHFI) today announced that Neeraj Sahai, 56, has been appointed President of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, effective January 6, 2014.

Mr. Sahai, currently the head of Citi's Securities and Fund Services (SFS) business who also acts as chief fiduciary officer of Citigroup, succeeds Douglas Peterson, who became president and chief executive officer of McGraw Hill Financial on November 1.

"We are delighted Neeraj is joining S&P," said Mr. Peterson. "He 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. As debt markets expand around the world to finance the increasing demand for development and infrastructure projects, S&P and its 1,400 highly trained analysts will be there to offer widely recognized and globally comparable measures of relative credit risk. Neeraj will be leading a world-class brand that, together with our other benchmarks and analytics products, provide essential intelligence to the capital and commodity markets."

"I am eager to get started, to work alongside S&P's deeply talented employees and to build on the progress Doug and the management team have achieved," said Mr. Sahai.

While leading SFS since 2005, Mr. Sahai significantly grew the business, which offers securities services to investors, issuers and intermediaries with an on-the-ground presence in more than 95 countries. From 2002 to 2005 he was chief financial officer of Citi's Global Transaction Services. Before that, Mr. Sahai was head of audit and risk review for Citi's Capital Markets and Banking businesses. He has served in a range of other roles with Citi in the U.S. and early in his career he held a number of positions of increasing responsibility with Citi in India. Mr. Sahai began his career at Citi in 1984, managing relationships with and serving as credit officer for clients in the Corporate Bank and Financial Institutions group.

Mr. Sahai holds a bachelor's degree in economics with honors and a master's degree in economics from the University of Delhi, an M.B.A. 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. With over 1,400 credit analysts in 23 countries, and more than 150 years' experience of assessing credit risk, it offers a unique combination of global coverage and local insight. It publishes more than a million credit ratings on debt issued by sovereign, municipal, corporate and financial sector entities.

About McGraw Hill Financial:

McGraw Hill Financial is a leading financial intelligence company providing the global capital and commodity markets with independent benchmarks, credit ratings, portfolio and enterprise risk solutions, and analytics. The Company's iconic brands include: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, S&P Capital IQ, S&P Dow Jones Indices, Platts, CRISIL, J.D. Power, and McGraw Hill Construction. The Company has approximately 17,000 employees in 27 countries. Additional information is available at www.mhfi.com.

Investor Relations: http://investor.mhfi.com

Get news direct via RSS:
http://investor.mhfi.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=96562&p=rssSubscription&t=&id=&

Contacts for McGraw Hill Financial:
Media Relations Contact:
Jason Feuchtwanger
Director, Corporate Media Relations
(212) 512-3151 (office)
(347) 419-4169 (mobile)
jason.feuchtwanger@mhfi.com 

Investor Relations Contact:
Chip Merritt
Vice President, Investor Relations
(212) 512-4321 (office)
chip.merritt@mhfi.com

SOURCE McGraw Hill Financial