NEW YORK -- (BUSINESS WIRE) --

MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI), a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community, announced today that Frederick W. Bogdan will retire from his position as MSCI’s General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary on January 2, 2020. Robert J. Gutowski, who currently serves as Deputy General Counsel, Head of Compliance and Head of Internal Audit, will succeed Mr. Bogdan in leading the global legal and compliance functions. Mr. Bogdan will remain with the company for a transition period ending on March 2, 2020.

Mr. Bogdan joined MSCI as its first lawyer in May 2000 and during his tenure has served critical roles in supporting the company’s licensing business, ensuring its successful initial public offering and transition to a fully independent public company and overseeing the legal aspects of various strategic transactions, including complex integration and transition services matters.

Before MSCI, he worked at Morgan Stanley from 1995 to 2000 and was promoted to Managing Director in 2005. He began his legal career as a litigator at Dewey Ballantine LLP.

“From building MSCI’s global legal and compliance functions to playing a central role in every significant company transaction, Rick has been an invaluable member of our leadership team and respected advisor to me and to the Board of Directors,” remarked Henry A. Fernandez, MSCI’s CEO and Chairman.

“On behalf of everyone at MSCI, I want to thank Rick for his enormous contributions to the company over the years and wish him all the best in this next chapter of his life. While we will miss Rick, I also look forward to working closely with Rob in his new role. With his strong business acumen and insight into the company’s operations and legal and compliance processes, he is well suited to counsel MSCI in its next stage of transformation,” continued Mr. Fernandez.

Mr. Bogdan commented, “It’s been a privilege to work at MSCI over the last 19 years. I am grateful that I could contribute to its growth story. With its strong leadership, dedicated employees and commitment to its clients and shareholders, I am confident that MSCI will continue to be successful. I have worked with Rob for 17 years and believe his deep knowledge of the company and versatile set of legal skills and experiences makes him more than qualified to lead the team.”

Mr. Gutowski joined MSCI in 2002. Previously, he was a corporate lawyer 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.

About MSCI Inc.

MSCI is a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community. With over 45 years of expertise in research, data and technology, we power better investment decisions by enabling clients to understand and analyze key drivers of risk and return and confidently build more effective portfolios. We create industry-leading, research-enhanced solutions that clients use to gain insight into and improve transparency across the investment process.

To learn more, please visit www.msci.com.

Website and Social Media Disclosure

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Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements relate to future events or to future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “may,” “could,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “seek,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential” or “continue,” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are, in some cases, beyond our control and that could materially affect our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

Other factors that could materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements can be found in MSCI’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on February 22, 2019 and in quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed or furnished with the SEC. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if our underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from what MSCI projected. Any forward-looking statement in this press release reflects MSCI’s current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to MSCI’s operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. MSCI assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.