Catherine Clay was used to partnering with index providers in her previous role as global head of derivatives at Cboe Global Markets, leading the exchange’s global options and futures businesses and its Data Vantage arm. Since 1 November 2025 she has been on the other side of the fence as chief executive of S&P Dow Jones Indices.

She reports to Martina Cheung, president and chief executive of S&P Global, and has joined the company’s executive leadership team. Cheung said in a statement at the time that Clay’s forward-thinking mindset, customer-centric approach and extensive leadership experience are vital for S&P DJI’s future.

Clay told Markets Media that she was at Cboe for nine years and accomplished most of what she wanted to do. The opportunity presented itself at S&P, which she said is a highly respected company with extensive businesses far beyond indices. In addition, S&P is a global enterprise that she thought it would be intriguing to join and continue her learning curve.

Cboe had a great partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices, according to Clay.

“When you are on the outside, you don’t get a window into just how much diligence goes into the business of creating financial benchmarks and indices for our clients,” she added. “I was impressed by that.”

She describes the “privilege” of working with all three index providers during her time at Cboe. Clay believes that S&P Dow Jones Indices’ differentiator is that the team has a “really solid” 360 degree understanding of the ecosystem that surrounds asset management and trading and what is key for clients.

“We don’t stop our client relationship once we get the index out the door as we have a whole team dedicated to marketing, thought leadership and distribution support,” Clay added. “We really help our clients win with their clients.”

Strategy

When she joined S&P Dow Jones Indices, Clay had a “very structured” 100-day plan. Clay spent the first two months on a broad global listening tour, meeting as many team members and clients as possible, and taking immediate action on things that obviously needed to be done. She worked with the operating committee and the leadership team to set a challenging mission statement in the first 100 days.

“We agreed our role in capital markets is building and maintaining trusted index benchmarks,” Clay added. “Elevating market confidence is our North Star and everything we do aligns to that.”

On 26 May 26 S&P Dow Jones Indices celebrated the 130th anniversary of the widely recognised Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). At its launch the index had 12 industrial companies to a benchmark of 30 leading corporations across sectors including technology, healthcare, financials, energy and consumer discretionary. The anniversary came after the DJIA rose past 50,000 for the first time on 6 February 2026.

Index providers became the centre of attention in June when SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space and AI company, carried out the largest ever initial public offering. S&P DJI maintained its 12 month waiting period for SpaceX to enter its indexes. In contrast, Morningstar said in a report that Nasdaq changed its rules to allow SpaceX to enter the Nasdaq-100 Index after 15 days of trading, FTSE Russell added a fast-entry rule to its suite of U.S. indexes to allow large IPOs into its portfolios after just five days.

S&P Dow Jones Indices said in a statement in June that it had conducted a consultation with market participants on potential changes to the S&P U.S. indices methodology and Dow Jones U.S. total stock market indices methodology related to megacap companies.

The statement said: “Based on S&P DJI’s Index Committee review of the markets and after consideration of responses received from a wide range of market participants, no changes will be made to the eligibility criteria including financial viability screens, seasoning period, or minimum IWF, for the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, or S&P SmallCap 600 as a result of the S&P Dow Jones Indices consultation on the treatment of MegaCap companies. Accordingly, there will be no changes to existing methodology for this index family.”

There have also been concerns that indexes have become weighted too heavily to large technology companies. Clay highlighted research by S&P Global, In the Shadows of Giants, which examined what happened last time 10 companies held a similar index weight. The 10 largest companies in the S&P 500 represented almost 40% of the index by mid-2025, a level of concentration not seen since the mid-1960s, according to  the report.

The research examined the individual and cumulative weights of the earliest cohort of “Top 10” companies as they were initially on 30 June 965 and how they evolved over the following 60 years.

“The aggregate performance of the June 1965 Top 10 cohort was underwhelming,” said the report.  “Three entered bankruptcy proceedings, all fell to represent much smaller weights, and several represent potential business school case studies in ‘what went wrong’ with once widely admired and dominant U.S. corporations.”

However, the overall S&P 500 was not excessively impacted by its underperforming heavyweights, according to the research, because it included around 490 other companies. The report said a rare select few among these delivered truly exceptional returns, which drove the entire market higher.

“A broad based, capitalization-weighted approach may continue to offer an efficient way to evolve and adapt with the emerging contenders as they compete to become the next titans,” said the report.

In addition, the index provider has offered an alternative to the standard capitalization-weighted approach for U.S. blue-chip equities since January 2003 when it launched  the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index.

Digital assets 

Clay said: “We pay strong attention to our core, and the key benchmarks that we bring to the market, especially in U.S. equities. Simultaneously, we are being forward-thinking and front-footed on new areas that need benchmarks, including private markets, DeFi (decentralized finance) and wealth.”

She described S&P DJI’s role in any asset class as an independent index and benchmark provider, leaning on high-integrity foundational data and then applying rigor around how it creates and governs methodologies.

For example, in July this year S&P DJI and Pantera Capital, a digital asset-native investment firm, launched the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index, which is designed to serve as a benchmark for institutional investors though a rules-based approach similar to traditional finance benchmarks. Clay described this index as unique because it only includes tokens and companies that show real-world use and generate actual revenue.

She said: “We are optimistic that people will start to view this as analogous to an equity index but translated into the digital asset ecosystem.”

On 14 September 2026 S&P Global announced that it has invested in Kaiko, the global independent leader in digital asset market data, indices, and data infrastructure, which deepens S&P Global’s commitment to digital assets and onchain markets.

Clay said in a statement that Kaiko’s strength in crypto market data and analytics builds foundational transparency for the digital-asset ecosystem and turns complex trading and onchain activity into reliable, decision-ready intelligence which supports S&P DJI’s mission to bridge traditional finance and DeFI.

Ambre Soubiran, chief executive of Kaiko, said in a statement: “S&P Global brings a reputation for trust and analytical excellence that is unmatched in global markets. Together, we will accelerate our ability to serve institutions as they move onchain at a pivotal moment for the industry.”

The two firms already have a relationship. In March this year S&P DJI and Kaiko announced the tokenization of the iBoxx U.S. Treasuries Index, which marked the first time a major index provider made a financial benchmark available as a native digital asset, with embedded index data distribution, licensing and permissioning. They also launched a co-branded digital asset index suite this month.

Private markets & wealth 

In private markets, Clay said an index provider needs to be close to partners that own or have a lens into the valuation data. S&P DJI has partnerships with NewVest and Lincoln International and is eager to continue developing its private market index and benchmark suites as investors are look for guidance in how they allocate capital and manage risk.

In August this year S&P DJI and Lincoln International announced an expansion of the S&P Lincoln Senior Debt Index Series, providing enhanced tools for measuring changes to the private loan market. The enhanced series enables investors to analyze performance across more granular market categories, including industry sectors such as industrials, technology and healthcare, as well as categories based on loan size and company earnings, while maintaining the independent, rules-based methodology of the flagship indices.

In wealth, Clay said there is a generational transfer of happening and this is changing how wealth is managed. She added: “We are spending time with partners and clients to help bring our benchmarks into highly customizable model portfolios built for a digital and multi-asset era.”

Ron Kahn, co-head of Lincoln International’s valuation and opinions group, said in a statement: “By moving to monthly reporting and expanding S&P Lincoln Senior Debt Index Series with sub-indices covering key industry sectors and different borrower size categories, we’re providing subscribers with more frequent, independent benchmarks that better reflect performance within the direct lending market throughout the year.”

Geographical expansion

S&P held its 18th annual ETF conference in Tokyo and Clay described the appreciation for S&P to have its largest ETF conference there as “meaningful.” She said: “One of my highlights was being in Japan and learning how our presence in that market helps support initiatives that are important to that country – like the Japanese NISA accounts.”

Clay added that the S&P 500 is known around the world and that allocations across globe continue to flow into products that track our indices.

“We are expanding what we do really well in the U.S. to other parts of the world, which we believe contributes to economic growth and healthy capital markets in other countries,” she said.

In addition, S&P DJI has “very strong” relationships with many exchanges around the world, and works closely through those partnerships to provide indices for products in those markets.

Financials

In S&P Global’s second quarter results for this year, the company reported record results in ratings and indices.

“We have an internal focus of achieving operational excellence and speed which is hugely important for us to meet our clients’ needs while always elevating market confidence,” said Clay.

At the end of this year, she wants the business to be faster, more operationally efficient and achieving all the objectives set out for both its franchises and adjacent emerging areas.

“I am really happy that we are tracking against what I consider success at the end of the year, including our financial performance,” she added. “I am particularly pleased with our thought leadership and new benchmarks in DeFi and private markets.”