Chief Legal Officer

OSTTRA Group; New York (NY); On-site; USD 575,000 - 625,000; Full time

Job summary

S&P Global seeks a Chief Legal Officer to lead the global legal and risk functions, reporting to the CEO and the Board. This executive role shapes governance, regulatory strategy, and enterprise risk management across a transformed, AI-enabled organization.

You will partner with senior leaders to enable growth while safeguarding the company’s license to operate, overseeing complex litigation and strategic transactions in a highly regulated, data-driven environment.

Qualifications

• Mandatory prior experience as a General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer in a public company.
• Deep experience across governance, securities, regulatory, litigation, and commercial matters in a highly regulated, global environment.
• Experience in regulated, data-rich, IP-intensive, technology-enabled businesses.

Responsibilities

• Act as General Counsel/Chief Legal Officer with board/CEO advisory responsibility.
• Oversee governance, regulatory, litigation, and commercial matters across the enterprise.
• Lead modernization of Legal and Risk operations and AI governance.
• Partner with Corporate functions to enable growth while ensuring compliance.

Job description

About the Role:

Grade Level (for internal use): 20

Company Overview

S&P Global is a leading provider of transparent and independent ratings, benchmarks, analytics, and data to the capital and commodity markets worldwide. With more than a century of trust behind its brands, S&P Global plays a foundational role in the global financial system, transforming data into Essential Intelligence® that enables companies, governments, and individuals to make decisions with conviction.
The firm is executing a multi‑year enterprise transformation focused on three strategic pillars: ADVANCE Market Leadership, EXPAND High‑Growth Adjacencies, and AMPLIFY Enterprise Capabilities & AI. This strategy is reshaping how S&P Global operates—scaling enterprise platforms, accelerating innovation, simplifying operating models, and embedding AI across products, workflows, and internal processes.
At the same time, S&P Global’s competitive advantage increasingly rests on the strength of its proprietary data, methodologies, benchmarks, and intellectual property, reinforced by robust governance, regulatory credibility, and trust. Maintaining that trust—while enabling growth and innovation—central to the company’s long‑term value creation.

The Team

Reporting To President and Chief Executive Officer.

Direct Reports:

• Divisional General Counsels
• Global Head of Government Affairs & Public Policy
• Head of Legal Operations & Transformation
• Corporate Secretary
• Corporate Legal
• Chief Risk & Compliance Officer

Responsibilities and Impact

This is a successor appointment, reflecting continuity of leadership while positioning the function for the company’s next phase of enterprise transformation.
As S&P Global evolves its operating model, accelerates innovation, expands globally, and commercializes AI‑enabled capabilities, Legal and Risk are increasingly central—not only as guardians of trust, integrity, and the license to operate, but as strategic enablers of growth.
This role will inherit a strong legal and risk foundation and is expected to evolve it into a more integrated, forward‑leaning, and enterprise‑scaled capability—strengthening governance, anticipating risk proactively, and enabling the business to move with confidence in an increasingly complex global environment.
The Chief Legal Officer will serve as a primary advisor to the Board of Directors and executive leadership on legal, regulatory, risk, and governance matters, and as a trusted strategic partner to the President and CEO.
Critically, the role is expected to operate not only as a steward of governance and compliance, but as a growth‑oriented leader, enabling:

• Product innovation and new commercial models
• Strategic partnerships and ecosystem expansion
• Inorganic growth, including M&A
• Deployment of AI, GenAI, and emerging technologies, and continued geographic expansion

Operating at the intersection of law, regulation, risk, data, and technology, this executive will lead an integrated global legal and risk organization responsible for protecting S&P Global’s license to operate while enabling innovation, growth, and transformation across the enterprise.

The role combines:

• Board‑level judgment and independence
• Regulatory credibility and enforcement readiness
• Deep understanding of IP, data, and AI governance
• A modern, transformation‑oriented operating mindset

The Chief Legal Officer will be expected to bring gravitas, foresight, and pragmatism—balancing innovation with discipline, speed with rigor, and commercial ambition with long‑term stewardship.

Key Responsibilities:

Board, Governance & Public Company Leadership

• Serve as a principal advisor to the Board and its Committees on corporate governance, securities law, disclosure, enterprise risk oversight, and fiduciary matters.
• Ensure strong, timely, and decision‑ready engagement with the Board, supporting effective oversight during a period of enterprise transformation.
• Oversee public company obligations, including SEC and stock exchange requirements, in close partnership with Finance, Investor Relations, and senior leadership.

Growth Enablement & Enterprise Transformation

• Act as a strategic partner to the business on growth initiatives, including product innovation, new commercial models, strategic partnerships, and geographic expansion.
• Provide legal leadership on M&A and other strategic transactions, supporting disciplined execution of inorganic growth priorities.

Regulatory Engagement & External Trust

• Lead senior‑level engagement with key regulators and enforcement bodies, including the SEC, DOJ, and relevant global regulators, ensuring consistency, credibility, and preparedness.
• Anticipate regulatory and enforcement developments impacting S&P Global’s businesses, advising leadership on emerging risks and strategic implications.
• Safeguard S&P Global’s reputation as a trusted, independent market institution.

Enterprise Risk Leadership

• Provide enterprise leadership on legal and risk governance, setting clear frameworks for issue identification, escalation, and decision‑making.
• Set the tone for the function, ensuring the right balance between protecting the company and enabling responsible innovation—helping leaders navigate trade‑offs with clarity and consistency.
• Partner closely with the Chief Risk Officer to ensure alignment across legal, regulatory, operational, technology, and reputational risk within a coherent enterprise model.

AI, IP, Data & Technology Governance

• Lead governance frameworks for AI, GenAI, and agentic technologies, ensuring responsible innovation, auditability, defensibility, and regulatory readiness.
• Define and protect enterprise‑wide intellectual property strategy, consistent with S&P Global’s proprietary data, methodologies, benchmarks, and tools.
• Balance innovation velocity with strong controls across data privacy, security, model governance, and emerging technology risk.

Litigation & Dispute Strategy

• Oversee complex litigation and investigations globally, setting strategy, managing risk, and coordinating external counsel in high‑stakes matters.
• Ensure disciplined, enterprise‑wide approaches to dispute resolution and risk mitigation.

Leadership & Transformation

• Modernize Legal and Risk operations to deliver materially greater speed, scale, and effectiveness through simplification, redesign, and AI‑enabled ways of working.
• Build and lead a world‑class global Legal and Risk team defined by high standards, strong judgment, and clear accountability.
• Set the leadership tone for disciplined judgment, practical problem‑solving, and strong partnership with the business.
• Strengthen leadership depth and succession while embedding modern capabilities, automation, and new ways of working across the function.

What This Role Offers:

This is a rare opportunity to shape the legal, risk, and governance agenda of a foundational global institution at a moment of significant transformation—working directly with the CEO, Board and Executive Leadership Team (ELT) to define how S&P Global innovates, grows, and sustains trust in an increasingly complex global environment.

Compensation/Benefits Information: (This section is only applicable to US candidates)

S&P Global states that the anticipated base salary range for this position is $575,000 to $625,000. Final base salary for this role will be based on the individual’s geographic location, as well as experience level, skill set, training, licenses and certifications.

In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for an annual incentive plan.

This role is eligible to receive additional S&P Global benefits. For more information on the benefits we provide to our employees, please click here.

What We're Looking For:

Basic Required Qualifications:

• Mandatory prior experience as a General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer in a public company, with direct Board and CEO advisory responsibility.
• Deep experience across governance, securities, regulatory, litigation, and commercial matters in a highly regulated, global environment.
• Experience in regulated, data‑rich, IP‑intensive, and technology‑enabled businesses (e.g., financial services, data, analytics, marketplaces, infrastructure, platforms), with openness to leaders from other complex, regulated sectors beyond financial services and technology.