Associate General Counsel, Head of Legal, S&P Global Sustainable1
Pavani Thagirisa is Associate General Counsel, Global Head of Legal for S&P Global Sustainable1. In this role, Pavani is responsible for overseeing the global, day-to-day legal support for Sustainable1’s sustainability solutions partnering across the full S&P Global enterprise in helping identify and mitigate legal, regulatory, operational, commercial, and business risk.
Since early 2009, she has held several management and non-management roles at S&P Global with increasing responsibility, ranging from commercial deal negotiation, strategic partnership management, and helping set legal and operational strategies for the legal department. From late 2017 through Spring 2019, Ms. Thagirisa served as Chair of the General Counsel’s Advisory Council where she assisted S&P Global’s General Counsel, Steve Kemps, and his Advisory Council address cross-divisional and cross-functional opportunities and challenges across the Global Legal and Corporate Security Department.
In addition to her usual responsibilities, Pavani is also an active advocate for various diversity and inclusion efforts the company. Most recently, Pavani spent a number of years on the Board of Pride (S&P Global’s People Resource Group celebrating the LGBTQ+ community).
Pavani holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Wellesley College and a Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School. Immediately after law school, she clerked for the Honorable Joan M. Azrack in the Eastern District of New York. Thereafter, she practiced litigation at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz P.C. before transitioning to transactional legal work. Her early transactional work focused on Arts, Intellectual Property, and Entertainment Law. In early 2009, Ms. Thagirisa decided to shift her legal focus once again and moved in-house to S&P Global.
In Pavani’s spare time, she enjoys participating in outdoor adventures, attending music and dance performances, and spending time with her three children and jazz musician husband. Ms. Thagirisa serves as a Board Member of Novata as well as The Jazz Gallery and Brooklyn-based Kiddie Science.
