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When S&P Global announced its $44 billion acquisition of IHS Markit in 2020—the largest corporate deal of the year—the company nearly made it to closing without a single press leak. That discretion was thanks in large part to the work of Alma Rosa Montañez, then chief corporate counsel for S&P Global and now general counsel for both S&P Global’s enterprise data organization and its market intelligence division.
“There were basically four of us doing the brunt of the internal work,” says Montañez, who worked around the clock on finalizing the mammoth deal. “We were deeply invested in the process, and we got it to the night before the signing before word got out. I suppose that’s pretty good, all things considered.”
Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, Montañez, the in-house team, and their external counsel had to involve more people as the deal approached the finish line. From Friday to Sunday, word started to spread. The news landed publicly around 10 p.m. ET on Sunday. Montañez was on her umpteenth cup of coffee when she heard and instantly called the deputy GC. Fortunately, the signing followed about two hours later, with the deal too far along for the leak to derail it.
One unintended advantage of the deal’s taking place in 2020, when teams were working remotely, was that it was easier to maintain secrecy. Montañez says that had the organization been on premises, it would have been much harder to keep the deal under wraps. Seeing a constant stream of M&A professionals and outside counsel gathering in a meeting room, not mention meetings among the two management teams, would have been a dead giveaway.
“It was an incredible opportunity to build partnership and prove that you’re a person people want to work with. I mean that from both sides of the team. It reinforced a lot of trust in a difficult time, and we could carry that forward into whatever comes next.”
Alma Rosa Montañez
For Montañez, becoming part of the largest corporate acquisition in the strangest year in recent memory inspired mixed feelings. “On a professional level, I’m not sure how many people ever get to do a deal of this size,” Montañez says. “So that was an amazing, whirlwind experience.
“On a personal level, I wouldn’t mind if it remained a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she adds. “It’s a painful thing to do. It took a lot to adjust to constant board presentations and meetings, meetings that kept getting more and more frequent.” Working straight through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s was no picnic either.
Reflecting on that time, Montañez still sees the upside, saying, “It was an amazing experience, and it did wonders for my confidence in front of the board—at some point, all those repetitions build some muscle memory.”
That she has some trepidation about deals of that size is a strong statement coming from a lawyer who puts her career first most of the time. Montañez has consistently demonstrated the capacity to outwork those around her in just about every role she’s ever had. She’s currently GC in two separate roles.
But a merger is much more than a single deal. It’s a cultural transformation. Combining the cultures and employees of two organizations during a lockdown was especially challenging. But Montañez didn’t shy away from it.
“You have to start building culture as a team fairly quickly to build trust,” the GC explains. “Otherwise, you’re already going to be behind by the time you get to closing. We set up summer drinks for all of the lawyers in New York. We went through a formal talent assessment to decide what our new structure should look like.”
Montañez has tried to find the silver lining in more than one difficult situation. For example, when war broke out between Russia and Ukraine a mere week after the merger closed, the lawyer found herself managing a Belarus operation inherited through the merger—one that suddenly needed to cease operations after S&P Global announced it was suspending commercial activities in Russia and Belarus.
“On a professional level, I’m not sure how many people ever get to do a deal of this size. So that was an amazing, whirlwind experience.”
Alma Rosa Montañez
While these events were stressful, Montañez says they provided her with an optimal chance to get to know colleagues in the region. “It was an incredible opportunity to build partnership and prove that you’re a person people want to work with,” Montañez explains. “I mean that from both sides of the team. It reinforced a lot of trust in a difficult time, and we could carry that forward into whatever comes next.”
And “whatever comes next” tends to be complex for S&P Global. Now managing two legal teams that total about ninety people, Montañez is looking at the emerging legal questions around artificial intelligence and its influence on the company’s evolving data business.
“I continue to want to help the legal team find new ways to create a competitive edge for the business,” the GC says. “We’re definitely the guardians of risk, but I believe in our power to enable the business and identify opportunities.”
“From the moment we started working together, I continue to be impressed with how Alma combines brilliant lawyering and managerial skills with tenacity, courage, and kindness,” says Meredith Cross, partner at WilmerHale. “She masters any topic and willingly takes on any challenge. I’m confident Alma will continue her remarkable ascent while staying true to her values.”
Montañez says she sometimes spends too much time in the weeds because she loves it. She legitimately enjoys rejiggering operational processes like contract management. The GC likes to examine the ways in which systems connect and how to bring out the best in every step.
“Every little step that disincentivizes the rest of the organization from working with us is a loss for our internal clients and our team,” the GC says. “I want our organization to be undeniable.”
