Scaling AI with Humanity: S&P Global’s CPO on Skills, Spark Assist, and 7,000 Change Leaders

Episode notes

Summary AI is racing ahead—but how do you bring a 40k+ global workforce along without losing the human connection? Girish Ganesan, Chief People Officer at S&P Global, shares how his team is redesigning work around skills and tasks while keeping “humanity as the multiplier.” He outlines three macro challenges—pace of change vs. org readiness, the shift from roles to skills, and maintaining connection across 41 countries—and the practical ways S&P Global is responding. Expect concrete examples: making change tangible at the workflow level, rolling out a companywide AI Academy, launching Spark Assist (an internal genAI platform) with a shared “Spark Store” of 2,000+ employee prompts, and building a skills-powered internal talent marketplace on Eightfold. Girish also details how they’re equipping 7,000 people leaders through a Change Leadership Academy, the “power skills” that drive ROI from AI (judgment, systems thinking, emotional intelligence), and how personalization at scale is reshaping learning, mobility, and manager support. Timestamps [00:45] – S&P Global’s scale and Girish’s mandate as CPO [01:36] – Three macro challenges: AI’s pace, skills vs.