James Wiemken

Executive Managing Director, Head of Global Ratings Services at S&P Global Ratings

Speaker

James M. Wiemken is is Executive Managing Director and Head of Global Ratings Services which includes Analytics, Research and Operations. He is based in New York and is a member of the S&P Global Ratings Operating Committee. Jim oversees a group of more than 2,200 analysts and support staff across 28 countries that covers more than one million outstanding ratings on entities and securities across a wide range of sectors. These include governments, corporations, financial institutions, and structured finance.Jim joined Standard & Poor’s in 1997 and has held lead regional practices in both U.S. public finance and European structured finance. Previously, Jim was a member of S&P Global Ratings’ Analytics Policy Board and the global criteria officer for international public finance and U.S. public finance ratings, based in London. Following that assignment, Jim was Global Practice Leader for Structured Finance Ratings and then went on to run the Methodologies group responsible for developing and maintaining criteria and models. Following that, he then led S&P Ratings’ Analytical Quality & Validation group and chaired the Criteria and Model Governance Committee, which reviews and approves criteria and models in advance of consideration for board approval before assuming his current role. Before joining S&P Global, Jim was a regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, specializing in state and local economic analysis. Specific research interests included estimating the effects of North American Free Trade Agreement and studying unintended incentives and consequences in banking legislation.