When information is the lifeblood of your company, you can't afford to sleep on the risks posed by artificial intelligence. Nor can you afford to overlook the opportunities.
Martina Cheung has never been one to be caught napping. As president and CEO of financial intelligence company S&P Global since November 2024, she has been leading the company's efforts to incorporate AI throughout the business and to expand the kinds of data S&P provides.
"Ultimately, the strategy is about scaling what we do best — trusted data, benchmarks and insights — while expanding into new opportunities where our capabilities are highly relevant," Cheung said. "That combination of core strength and adjacency growth is what I believe positions us for long-term, sustainable value creation."
In her first full year, S&P notched increases in both revenue and profit. Net income came in last year at $4.82 billion on revenue of $15.3 billion, up from net income of $4.17 billion on revenue of $14.2 billion in 2024.
Under Cheung's leadership, S&P Global was also busy in the M&A market. The company paid $1.8 billion last year for With Intelligence, a source of private markets data, insights and analytics. The deal, which closed in less than six weeks, added about $130 million in revenue last year and accelerated S&P's push into providing a window on the often opaque world of private markets.
In the same vein, S&P began collaborating with Mercer and Cambridge Associates to help standardize reporting on private markets. The partnership's first product is a set of performance datasets covering thousands of funds in private credit and real assets, the initial two asset classes targeted by S&P, according to Cheung. The partners expect to add private equity and other assets later in 2026.
"We've been a trusted partner in public markets for over a century, and we see private markets as the next frontier where our strengths in proprietary data, ratings, and analytics can make a real difference," Cheung said.
Her approach to the business has impressed Doug Peterson. He preceded Cheung as president and CEO of S&P and watched her rise through the company, which she joined in 2010 as vice president of operations for the ratings division.
Peterson recalled Cheung as being among the first leaders at S&P to embrace AI after the firm's 2018 acquisition of Kensho, a provider of analytics, AI, machine learning and data visualization systems to customers in finance and national security.
Cheung's early adoption reflected her sense of discovery and desire to learn, attitudes that continue to benefit the company, said Peterson, who remains a shareholder in S&P.
"She sets a tone that we have to be out there on the cutting edge," he said.
