Item 1. Business

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Mission

MSCI’s mission is to enable investors to build better portfolios for a better world.

Overview

We are a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community. Leveraging our knowledge of the global investment process and our expertise in research, data and technology, our actionable solutions1 power better investment decisions by enabling our clients to understand and analyze key drivers of risk and return and confidently and efficiently build more effective portfolios.

Investors all over the world use our tools and services to gain insight and improve transparency throughout their investment processes, including to help define their investment universe, inform and analyze their asset allocation and portfolio construction decisions, measure and manage portfolio performance and risk, conduct performance attribution, implement sustainable and other investment strategies, design and issue exchange traded funds (“ETFs”) and other index-enabled financial products, and facilitate reporting to stakeholders.

Our industry-leading, research-enhanced products and services include indexes; portfolio construction and risk management analytics; environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) research and ratings; and real estate benchmarks, return-analytics and market insights. Through our integrated franchise we provide solutions across our products and services to support our clients’ dynamic and complex needs. We are flexible in the delivery of our content and capabilities, much of which can be accessed by our clients through multiple channels and platforms.

We are focused on staying at the forefront of investment trends to address the evolving needs of our clients in a changing industry. In order to most effectively serve our clients, we are committed to driving an integrated solutions-based approach, achieving service excellence, enhancing our differentiated research and content, and delivering flexible, cutting-edge technology and platforms.

1	The term “solutions” as used throughout this Annual Report on Form 10-K refers to the use of our products or services by our clients to help them achieve their objectives.

Clients

Our clients comprise a wide spectrum of the global investment industry and include the following key client types:

	•	Asset owners (pension funds, endowments, foundations, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and insurance companies)

	•	Asset managers (institutional funds and accounts, mutual funds, hedge funds, ETFs, insurance products, private banks and real estate investment trusts)

	•	Financial intermediaries (banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, custodians, trust companies and investment consultants)

	•	Wealth managers (including an increasing number of “robo-advisors”)

As of December 31, 2019, we served over 7,500 clients2 in more than 85 countries. For the year ended December 31, 2019, our largest client organization by revenue, BlackRock, accounted for 11.5% of our total revenues, with 94.5% of the revenue from BlackRock coming from fees based on the assets in BlackRock’s ETFs that are based on our indexes.

Industry Trends and Competitive Advantages

We believe we are uniquely positioned to benefit from emerging trends and to help our clients adapt to a large and rapidly expanding and evolving investment industry. Investing has grown in complexity, with more choices across asset classes, security types and geographies. Investors are increasingly looking outside their home countries, and the access to and diversity of investment choices are growing. As a result, the investment process is transforming, reflected in a number of significant changes, including:

	•	Changing client operating models and business strategies, including an increased focus on ESG, factors and private asset investments, driven in part by fee compression, changing demographics and economics

	•	Increasing focus on global and multi-asset class investing as investors seek outcome-oriented results

	•	Increasing integration of ESG considerations into investment processes and products as sustainable investing goes mainstream

	•	Continuing growth of index-based investing and assets in ETFs and other vehicles that seek to replicate an index as investors increasingly seek lower-cost investment strategies

	•	Growing use of advanced technologies to enhance investment analytics and streamline operations

We believe the following competitive advantages position us well to meet client demands in light of these trends:

	•	Differentiated research-enhanced content, which is integral to the solutions we provide to clients to help them adapt to a fast-changing marketplace. We are continually developing a wide range of differentiated content and have amassed an extensive database of historical global market data, proprietary equity index data, factor models, private real estate assets benchmark data, risk algorithms and ESG data, all of which are critical components of our clients’ investment processes. This content is grounded in our deep knowledge of the global investment process and fueled by experienced research and product development and data management teams. We consult with clients and other market participants to discuss their needs, investment trends and implications for our business.

2	To calculate the number of clients, we use the shipping address of the ultimate customer utilizing the product which counts affiliates, user locations, or business units within a single organization as separate clients. If we aggregate all related clients under their respective parent entity, the number of clients would be over 4,200 as of December 31, 2019.

	•	Strong client relationships supported by a client coverage team with significant experience in the industry. This team builds and maintains strong and trusted client relationships with senior executives and investment professionals at the world’s largest investment institutions. We believe that these relationships and our global operating footprint are competitive advantages that enable us to tailor our coverage initiatives to better serve our clients in the markets in which they operate.

	•	Flexible, scalable, cutting-edge technology that is developed and enhanced by a global team of sophisticated technology and data professionals. Our technology enables clients to use content created by MSCI, themselves and third parties in an efficient manner and thereby helps them be more cost-effective in their own operations. Our technology allows us to continually improve our overall products and services by more efficiently processing data for distribution and ensuring advanced platform flexibility that provides for easy integration of our solutions into clients’ workflows. We continue to attract experienced talent within our technology team by hiring employees who will help us accelerate the pace of innovation, expand our program management capabilities and enhance the technology driving our content creation.

Strategy

We provide the tools and solutions that enable investors to take advantage of the transformation taking place in the investment industry, helping them better understand performance and risk, become more effective and efficient at building portfolios and achieve their investment objectives. In particular, we are focused on delivering actionable and integrated client solutions with the following key initiatives:

	•	Expand leadership in research-enhanced content across asset classes. We continue to deliver solutions that incorporate multiple areas of content and are supported by rich insights from our research and product development team. In addition to continuing to enhance our position as a leader with respect to tools and services for equity investors globally, our strategic priorities with respect to content are global equities, ESG, factors, fixed income and private assets, all of which represent significant growth opportunities. We have invested in expanding performance and risk capabilities and content across asset classes, which will allow us to provide more tools to our clients that help them pursue and achieve their investment objectives.

	•	Improve distribution and content-enabling technology. We have and will continue to invest in the development and use of advanced technology to drive integration and efficiencies, accelerate innovation and enhance the client experience. In addition, we increasingly employ proprietary and third-party machine learning and artificial intelligence to enhance our ability to gather and analyze data and automate and enhance the efficiency of many of our data processes. See Part I, Item 1. “Business—Technology” below for additional information.

	•	Strengthen existing client relationships and grow by developing new ones. In support of our solutions-driven strategy, we continue to grow our existing offerings by cultivating and expanding relationships across our client base and serving the needs of different client types across multiple asset classes. We remain focused on building the strength and knowledge of our client coverage team to enable them to educate our clients on the full breadth of our content and capabilities and how using complementary tools can help clients analyze performance and risk across asset classes and geographies. We continue to prioritize relationships with key growth client groups such as private assets, wealth and listed derivatives, and in fast-growing regions, such as Asia. In 2019, we made a significant key senior hire in Asia and transitioned other senior management in the region, which we believe will help expand our presence in the market. We also entered into agreements with key strategic clients who are creating exchange-listed and index-based futures and options based on our indexes to help industry participants manage investment risk.

	•	Execute strategic relationships and acquisitions with complementary content and technology companies. We regularly evaluate and selectively pursue strategic relationships with, and acquisitions of, providers of unique and differentiated content, products and technologies that we believe have the potential to complement, enhance or expand our offerings and client base. In order to drive value, we target acquisitions and strategic relationships that can be efficiently integrated into our existing operational structure and global sales network. In 2019, we completed the acquisition of Carbon Delta AG, an environmental fintech and data analytics company. This acquisition enhanced our existing ESG offerings

		with expert climate change scenario analysis and allowed us to expand our climate risk assessment and reporting offerings.

Financial Model

We have an attractive financial model due to our recurring revenue and strong cash generation. Clients purchase our products and services primarily through recurring fixed and variable fee arrangements, a business model which has historically delivered stable revenue and predictable cash flows. Finally, our disciplined capital-allocation policy provides us with flexibility to balance internal resources and investment needs, acquisitions and shareholder returns through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases.

Operating Segments

As the investment industry becomes more global and investors become increasingly focused on multi-asset-class portfolios, we believe we are well positioned to help our clients achieve their investment objectives by powering a more comprehensive analysis of their investment strategies using the content, applications and services across our four operating segments — Index, Analytics, ESG and Real Estate. For reporting purposes, the ESG and Real Estate operating segments are combined and presented as All Other as they do not meet the thresholds for separate presentation.

Our principal business model is generally to license annual, recurring subscriptions for the majority of our Index, Analytics and ESG products and services for a fee due in advance of the service period. We also license annual recurring subscriptions for the majority of our Real Estate products for a fee which is primarily paid in arrears after the product is delivered, with the exception of the Market Information product for which the fees are generally paid in advance. A portion of our fees comes from clients who use our indexes as the basis for index-linked investment products. Such fees are primarily based on a client’s assets under management (“AUM”) and trading volumes. See Part II, Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Overview” and Note 1, “Introduction and Basis of Presentation—Significant Accounting Policies—Revenue Recognition,” of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included herein for further information on how we generate revenue and our revenue recognition policy.

Our business model is susceptible to market movements that affect our AUM revenue, which generally have more influence on our revenues than seasonality.

Index

Clients use our indexes in many areas of the investment process, including index-linked product creation (e.g., ETFs and futures and options), performance benchmarking, portfolio construction and rebalancing, broker-dealer structured products and asset allocation. We currently calculate more than 226,0003 end-of-day indexes daily and more than 12,000 indexes in real time for a variety of markets and industries. Clients receive index data directly from us or from third-party vendors worldwide.

Our indexes include:

	•	MSCI Global Equity Indexes are designed to measure returns across a wide variety of equity markets, size segments, sectors and industries. As of December 31, 2019, we calculated indexes that covered more than 85 countries in developed, emerging, frontier and standalone markets, as well as various regional indexes built from the component indexes.

	•	Factor Indexes are created using the Barra Equity Models from our Analytics segment to address a growing trend among institutional investors and asset managers to target systematic style factors, such as volatility, size and momentum.

3	The number of indexes includes return versions (e.g., price, net and gross returns) but does not include different currency versions.

	•	ESG Indexes are constructed using data from our ESG segment to meet the growing demand for indexes that integrate ESG criteria to facilitate sustainable investing strategies.

	•	Custom Indexes are calculated by applying a client’s criteria such as stock exclusions, currency hedging, tax rates or special weighting to an existing MSCI index.

	•	Thematic Indexes are designed to measure the performance of specific social, economic, industrial, environmental or demographic investment strategies.

	•	Private Real Assets Indexes provide transparency and insight to private real estate investment strategies.

In 2019, we launched the following indexes:

	•	Climate Change Indexes designed to enable investors to holistically integrate climate risk considerations into their investment processes. The indexes are based on other MSCI indexes (e.g., the MSCI ACWI index) and reweights the securities based on a transition to a lower carbon economy, while seeking to minimize exclusions from the parent index.

	•	Adaptive Multiple-Factor Indexes designed to reflect a strategy that adapts multi-factor allocations to changing market environments based on four pillars: macro cycle, momentum, valuation and market sentiment.

	•	Megatrend Indexes designed to systematically identify companies based on the linkage of their business lines with the trend or theme being modeled. For example, the MSCI ACWI IMI Digital Economy Index tracks companies that derive significant revenues from the digital economy value chain, including digital payments and robotics, and the MSCI ACWI IMI Disruptive Technologies Index tracks “disruptive technology” companies that are broadly classified under the subthemes of 3D printing, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, fintech, digital payments, healthcare innovations, robotics, cybersecurity, clean energy and smart grids.

	•	Fixed Income Indexes designed to reflect the investment opportunity set of US Dollar-denominated investment grade corporate bonds. The issuance-weighted constituents meet certain issuance minimums and certain other criteria in the fixed income sector. The USD Investment Grade Corporate Bond Factor Fixed Income Indexes are constructed using constituent weights that reflect systematic style factor exposures such as carry, value, size and low risk. The USD Investment Grade Corporate Bond ESG Fixed Income Indexes are constructed using data from our ESG segment and expand existing ESG methodologies in equities such as ESG Leaders and ESG Universal to the Fixed Income USD investment grade corporate sector, enabling clients to construct multi-asset-class portfolios with a consistent ESG approach.

Our Index segment also includes revenues from licenses of GICS® and GICS Direct, the global industry classification standard jointly developed and maintained by MSCI and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, LLC, a subsidiary of S&P Global Inc. (“Standard & Poor’s”). This classification system was designed to respond to clients’ needs for a comprehensive, consistent and accurate framework for classifying companies into industries. GICS is widely accepted as an industry analysis framework for investment research, portfolio management and asset allocation. GICS Direct is a database comprised of active companies and securities classified by sector, industry group, industry and sub-industry in accordance with the proprietary GICS methodology. The MSCI US and Global Sector Indexes are comprised of GICS sector, industry group, and industry indexes across countries and regions in Developed, Emerging and select Frontier markets.

Analytics

Our Analytics segment offers risk management, performance attribution and portfolio management content, applications and services that provide clients with an integrated view of risk and return and an analysis of market, credit, liquidity and counterparty risk across all major asset classes, spanning short-medium- and long-term time horizons. Our offerings also support clients’ various regulatory reporting needs.

The content we create in our Analytics segment includes models to support factor-based analytics (e.g., Barra equity models and fixed income and multi-asset-class (“MAC”) models), pricing models, time series-based analytics, stress testing and liquidity risk analytics, as well as underlying content that is used as inputs to these models such as interest rate and credit curves. We continue to develop new and improved content in response to the evolving needs of our clients. For example, MSCI continued its innovation in the factor space by introducing Tiers 1 through 4 of our Multi-Asset Class Factor Model in 2019. The tiered structure allows for multiple levels of granularity, providing consistency throughout the investment process.

Our clients access our Analytics content through our proprietary applications and APIs (application programming interfaces), third-party applications or directly through their own platforms. MSCI’s Analytics applications provide clients with integrated market data and constituent-level indexes aggregated from multiple third-party and proprietary sources. This integrated market and benchmark data significantly reduces the operational burden on clients for both the implementation and ongoing operation of our Analytics products. Our major applications include the following:

	•	RiskMetrics RiskManager. We believe that RiskMetrics RiskManager is an industry leader in value at risk (“VaR”) simulation and in stress testing. Clients use RiskManager for daily analysis, measuring and monitoring of market and liquidity risk at fund and firm levels, sensitivity and stress testing, interactive what-if analysis, counterparty credit exposure and regulatory risk reporting.

	•	BarraOne. Powered by our MAC Models and Barra Integrated Model, BarraOne provides clients with global, multi-asset-class risk analysis using Barra’s fundamental factor methodology that allows clients to understand the factors driving the risk and performance of their investments.

	•	Barra Portfolio Manager. An integrated risk and performance platform, Barra Portfolio Manager is powered by Barra Equity Models and is used by equity fund managers and their teams to gain additional portfolio insight, manage their investment processes more systematically and make faster, more informed investment decisions.

	•	WealthBench and CreditManager. Wealthbench is a web-based platform used by private banks, financial advisers, brokerages and trust companies to help wealth managers assess portfolio risk, construct asset allocation policy and create comprehensive client proposals. CreditManager is a portfolio credit risk management system used primarily by banks to calculate economic capital, facilitate risk-based pricing and measure credit risk concentrations.

	•	MSCI BEON™. In 2019, the MSCI Analytics Platform was rebranded as MSCI BEON™. The platform provides a consolidated client experience by offering direct access to certain capabilities and content currently available through other Analytics applications, as well as content from other operating segments.

Our Analytics segment also provides various managed services to help clients operate more efficiently, including consolidation of client portfolio data from various sources, review and reconciliation of input data and results, and customized reporting. In addition, our HedgePlatform service allows clients such as funds of funds, pension funds and endowments who invest in hedge funds to measure, evaluate and monitor the risk of their hedge fund investments across multiple hedge fund strategies.

All Other – ESG

MSCI ESG Research4 analyzes over 8,5005 entities worldwide to help institutional investors understand how ESG considerations can impact the long-term risk and reward of their portfolio and individual security-level

4

MSCI ESG Research is provided by MSCI ESG Research LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MSCI Inc. that is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as an Investment Adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. MSCI ESG Ratings are used in the construction and calculation of MSCI ESG Indexes. MSCI Indexes are products of MSCI Inc., and MSCI Limited is the benchmark administrator of such indexes.

5	Does not include subsidiary-level companies.

investments. Subscribers to MSCI ESG Research include global asset managers, leading asset owners, consultants, advisers and academics.

In addition, MSCI ESG Research data and MSCI ESG Ratings are used in the construction of equity and fixed income indexes to help institutional investors more effectively benchmark ESG investment performance, issue index-based investment products, as well as manage, measure and report on ESG mandates.

MSCI ESG Research offerings include:

	•	MSCI ESG Ratings. Our ESG ratings are designed to identify ESG risks or opportunities that may not be captured through conventional analyses. MSCI ESG Ratings include ratings of equity issuers and fixed income securities, including corporate, sovereign and other government-related bonds. In 2019, MSCI broadened its coverage to ratings of funds and ETFs in the equity and fixed income universe. Ratings are designed to identify and analyze ESG issues, including exposures (e.g., business segment and geographic risk), management and industry-specific measures that may include the intersection of a company’s major social and environmental impacts with its core business operations, thereby identifying potential risks and opportunities for the company and its investors.

	•	MSCI ESG Business Involvement Screening Research. MSCI ESG Business Involvement Screening Research is a screening service that enables institutional investors to manage ESG standards and restrictions reliably and efficiently. Asset managers, investment advisers and asset owners can access screening research through the online MSCI ESG Manager platform or a data feed to satisfy their clients’ investment guidelines, implement client mandates and manage potential ESG portfolio risks.

For a description of regulation applicable to MSCI ESG Research offerings, see Part I, Item 1. “Business—Government Regulation.”

All Other – Real Estate

Our Real Estate segment includes research, reporting, market data and benchmarking offerings that provide real estate performance analytics for funds, investors and managers. Our Real Estate performance and risk analytics range from enterprise-wide to property-specific analysis. Some of the risk analysis generated in the Real Estate segment is also used in the products offered by our other operating segments. For example, the MAC models created in our Analytics segment offer a view of risk across market and asset classes, including private real estate, by incorporating content generated in the Real Estate segment. We also provide business intelligence to real estate owners, managers, developers and brokers worldwide. Real Estate offerings include:

	•	MSCI Enterprise Analytics is an interactive application that offers a single integrated view of analysis to private real estate investors and managers, providing them with the ability to evaluate and analyze the drivers of portfolio performance across an organization’s investments, as well as review exposures and concentrations across markets, asset types and increasingly diverse portfolios.

	•	MSCI Global Intel is an industry-leading database which equips asset owners, researchers, strategists and portfolio and risk managers with data and analytics to enhance their understanding of local, regional and global real estate performance and risks. This tool comprises a consolidated set of global, regional, national, city and submarket indexes with segmentation by property type.

	•	Global MSCI Real Estate Analytics Portal is a dynamic platform for real estate performance and risk analysis, which enables real estate investors to gain market-level insights and evaluate the performance of their individual portfolios using relevant analytical filters.

Research and Product Development

We take an integrated team approach to developing content across our operating segments. Our product management, research and product development, data operations and technology, and application development departments are at the center of this process. Our content is developed by a research and product development team comprised of mathematicians, economists, statisticians, financial engineers and investment industry experts. Content created in one segment can often be used for the creation of products in another segment. For example, the MAC models created in our Analytics segment offers a view of risk across market and asset classes, including private real estate, by incorporating content generated in the Real Estate segment, and MSCI ESG indexes are constructed using data from our ESG segment.

Through our relationships with the world’s largest investment institutions, we monitor investment trends and their drivers globally and support instrument valuation, risk modeling, portfolio construction, portfolio attribution, asset allocation and VaR simulation. An important way we monitor global investment trends and their implications for our business is through direct public consultations and client advisory panels and through the forum provided by our Advisory Council. Our Advisory Council meets twice a year to discuss current and emerging investment industry trends and is comprised of senior investment professionals from around the world and senior members of our research and product development team.

Technology

Technology plays a pivotal role in our operations. In addition to leveraging cutting-edge technology to distribute our content, we aim to:

	•	Enhance data processing by incorporating data science and machine learning into our data collection processes to enable us to efficiently build scale and facilitate faster product releases while also maintaining the highest quality standards.

	•	Ensure information security by enhancing our technology infrastructure, with an emphasis on cybersecurity. Our success is dependent on our clients’ abilities to securely access our products and services. We implement changes and upgrades to technology and processes to minimize risk, and we improve employee awareness of cybersecurity issues through training. For a description of cybersecurity risks, see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” below.

	•	Enhance data center capabilities by evaluating our data center architecture and implementing recovery strategies that ensure the stability of our data center networks.

Competition

Index. Many industry participants compete with us by offering one or more indexes in similar categories. Such indexes vary widely in scope, including by geographic region, business sector and risk category, and may be used by clients in a variety of ways in many different markets around the world. Among our Index competitors are S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC (a joint venture company owned by CME Group, Inc., CME Group Services LLC and S&P Global Inc.) and FTSE Russell, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group PLC.

Growing competition also exists from industry participants, including asset managers and investment banks, that create their own indexes, often in cooperation with index providers, which may, among other things, provide some form of calculation agent service. Asset managers manage funds, including ETFs, based on their proprietary indexes, and many investment banks have launched structured products or created over-the-counter derivatives based on their proprietary indexes. This is often referred to as self-indexing.

Analytics. Our Analytics offerings compete with those from a range of competitors, including Qontigo (formerly Axioma Inc.), BlackRock Solutions, Bloomberg Finance L.P., and FactSet Research Systems Inc. Additionally, some of the larger broker-dealers have developed proprietary analytics tools for their clients. Similarly, some of the large global investment organizations, such as custodians, have developed internal risk management and performance analytics tools that they offer to their clients.

All Other. We also have a variety of competitors for our other offerings that comprise a smaller portion of our revenues, including a growing number of companies that are beginning to issue ESG data, ratings or research.

Intellectual Property, Other Proprietary Rights and Sources of Data

We consider many aspects of our offerings, processes and services to be proprietary. We have registered “MSCI” and other marks as trademarks or service marks in the United States and in certain other countries. We will continue to evaluate the registration of additional trademarks, service marks and copyrights as appropriate. From time to time, we also file patent applications to protect our proprietary rights. Additionally, many of our offerings, processes and services require the use of intellectual property obtained from third parties. It may be necessary in the future to seek or renew licenses relating to various aspects of our offerings and services.

The ownership of intellectual property and other proprietary rights, the implementation of certain measures to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights and our ability to obtain the rights to use intellectual property of third parties are important to our business and contribute in part to our overall success. We do not believe we are dependent on any one of our intellectual property rights or any one license to use third-party intellectual property. For a description of the risks associated with legal protection of our intellectual property and other rights, infringement claims and the ability to obtain or renew licenses for third-party intellectual property, see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors*”* below.

In addition to our intellectual property, we rely on third-party data in the creation and delivery of our products and services. For example, we require certain stock exchange data to construct equity indexes. Termination of the provision of such data or exclusion from, restricted use of, or litigation in connection with, such information could decrease the information available for us to use (and offer our clients). For a description of the risks associated with our dependence on third-party data suppliers, see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors*”* below.

Employees

We had 3,396 and 3,112 employees as of December 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively. As of December 31, 2019 and 2018, 62.9% and 61.4% of our employees, respectively, were located in emerging markets.

Government Regulation

The Company is subject to reporting, disclosure and recordkeeping obligations pursuant to SEC requirements. Pursuant to the European Union’s benchmark regulation, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (“UK FCA”) authorized MSCI Limited (a subsidiary of MSCI Inc.) to be the benchmark administrator for applicable MSCI indexes. Information about index regulation is periodically updated on our website at https://www.msci.com/index-regulation. The contents of our website, including this webpage, are not, however, a part of or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

MSCI ESG Research LLC is a registered investment adviser and must comply with the requirements of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”) and related SEC regulations. Such requirements relate to, among other things, disclosure obligations, recordkeeping and reporting requirements, marketing restrictions and general anti-fraud prohibitions. It is possible that in addition to MSCI ESG Research, other entities in our corporate family may be required to register as an investment adviser under the Advisers Act or comply with similar laws or requirements in states or foreign jurisdictions. We registered in 2012 with the State Council Information Office of the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in China as a foreign institution supplying financial information services in China. This license is currently administered by the Cyberspace Administration of China. For a description of the risks associated with government regulation, see Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” below.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

Name		Age		Position
Henry A. Fernandez		61		Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
C.D. Baer Pettit		55		President and Chief Operating Officer
Linda S. Huber		61		Chief Financial Officer
Robert J. Gutowski		52		General Counsel
Scott A. Crum		63		Chief Human Resources Officer

There are no family relationships between any of our executive officers and any director or other executive officer of the Company.

Henry A. Fernandez

Mr. Fernandez has served as Chairman since October 2007 and as Chief Executive Officer and a director since 1998. He also served as President from 1998 until October 2017. Before leading MSCI’s transition to becoming a fully independent, standalone public company in 2009, he was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he worked in emerging markets product strategy, equity derivative sales and trading, mergers and acquisitions, worldwide corporate finance and mortgage finance for U.S. financial institutions. Mr. Fernandez worked for Morgan Stanley from 1983 to 1991 and from 1994 to 2009. Mr. Fernandez also serves on the boards of directors/trustees of Stanford University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Foreign Policy Association, and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. Mr. Fernandez is the former Chair of the Advisory Council of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Georgetown University, an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and pursued doctoral studies in economics at Princeton University.

C.D. Baer Pettit

Mr. Pettit has served as the Company's President since October 2017 and the Company’s Chief Operating Officer since January 2020. As President and Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Pettit oversees the Company's business functions, including client coverage, marketing, product management, research and product development, technology and operations. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer from 2015 to 2017, Head of the Product Group from February 2015 to September 2015, Head of Index Products from 2011 to 2015, Head of Marketing from 2005 to 2012 and Head of Client Coverage from 2001 to 2012. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Pettit worked for Bloomberg L.P. from 1992 to 1999. Mr. Pettit holds a Master of Arts degree in history from Cambridge University and a Master of Science degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Linda S. Huber

Ms. Huber has served as the Chief Financial Officer since April 2019. As Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Huber manages the Company’s global finance and investor relations functions. She previously served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Moody’s Corporation from May 2005 to June 2018, where she had executive responsibility for the company’s global finance activities, information technology, communications and corporate services functions, as well as the Moody’s Foundation. Prior to joining Moody’s, she served in several increasingly senior roles in financial services, having served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at U.S. Trust Company, a subsidiary of Charles Schwab & Company, Inc.; Managing Director at Freeman & Co.; Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development and Assistant Treasurer at PepsiCo.; Vice President of the Energy Investment Banking Group at Bankers Trust Co.; and an Associate in the Natural Resources Group at The First Boston Corp. She also held the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army, where she served from 1980 to 1984. Ms. Huber holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. degree in business and economics from Lehigh University. Ms. Huber currently serves on the board of directors of the Bank of Montreal.

Robert J. Gutowski

Mr. Gutowski has served as the Company’s General Counsel since January 2020. Mr. Gutowski previously served as the Company’s Deputy General Counsel and the Head of Compliance from 2010 to 2019 and the Head of Internal Audit from 2012 to 2019. He joined MSCI in 2002. Prior to joining MSCI, he was an attorney in private practice at Rogers & Wells LLP and Clifford Chance LLP. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University and his J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School.

Scott A. Crum

Mr. Crum has served as the Chief Human Resources Officer since April 2014. Prior to joining MSCI, Mr. Crum served as global head of human resources for four publicly traded companies. Mr. Crum worked for Avon Products, Inc. as Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Chief People Officer from 2012 to 2013. From 2010 to 2012, Mr. Crum served as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc., one of two publicly traded companies formally created when Motorola Inc. split in January 2011 until it was acquired by Google. Prior to that, he served as the Senior Vice President and Director of Human Resources of ITT Corporation from 2002 to 2010 and Senior Vice President of Administration and Employee Resources at General Instruments Corp. from 1997 to 2000. Mr. Crum holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in industrial relations from Southern Methodist University.

Available Information

Our corporate headquarters is located at 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich Street, 49th Floor, New York, New York, 10007, and our telephone number is (212) 804-3900. We maintain a website on the internet at www.msci.com. The contents of our website are not a part of or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. The SEC maintains a website that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information that we file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov. We also make available free of charge, on or through our website, these reports, proxy statements and other information as soon as reasonably practicable following the time they are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. To access these, click on the “SEC Filings” link found on our Investor Relations homepage (http://ir.msci.com).

We also use our Investor Relations homepage and corporate Twitter account (@MSCI_Inc) as channels of distribution of Company information. The information we post through these channels may be deemed material.

Accordingly, investors should monitor these channels, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. In addition, you may automatically receive email alerts and other information about us when you enroll your email address by visiting the “Email Alert Subscription” section of our Investor Relations homepage at http://ir.msci.com/alerts.cfm. The contents of our website, including our Investor Relations homepage, and social media channels are not, however, a part of or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.