Friday, March 29, 2024

104 Deven Sharma
President - Standard & Poor's

Deven Sharma in charge of S&P since November 2007

Deven Sharma is President of Standard & Poor’s, a division of media company The McGraw-Hill Companies. He joined S&P in 2007 as executive vice president, Investment Service and Global Sales, replacing Kathleen Corbet, who stepped down in November of that year. His ranking in the FCI500 is far lower than his predecessors back in 2006 might have been, as the influence of credit rating agencies is much reduced compared with what prevailed pre crisis.

He has a background with a strong marketing content, needed after the credit rating crisis. He has published on the agency's website S&P's response to its critics in a pithy refutation of the myths surrounding agencies, which includes the following response to one 'myth' - i.e. that the agencies never apologised - the following: "S&P has repeatedly and publicly acknowledged disappointment and regret in failing to predict how quickly and severely the U.S. housing and mortgage markets would collapse".

Prior to joining S&P, Indian born Sharma was executive vice president, Global Strategy at The McGraw-Hill Companies for five years having joined McGraw-Hill in 2002 from Booz-Allen & Hamilton, where he was a partner specialising in business strategy and globalization, as well as on branding and sales management. He holds a bachelor's degree from the Birla Institute of Technology in India, a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a doctoral degree in Business Management from Ohio State University.

He has authored several publications on competitive strategy, customer solutions, sales and marketing. He is a board member of 800-Flowers Inc., CRISIL, The US-China Business Council and Asia Society Business Council.