The position will be replaced by senior Citigroup executive, Douglas Peterson by September 12, 2011. The decision came right after US lost its AAA notch.

The board of McGraw-Hill Companies, its directors and executives met on Monday with Jana Partners LLC, a hedge fund, and the Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund, where they announced the stepping down of Sharma. They also mentioned that Sharma will be working on strategic portfolio review until December.

Douglas Peterson who is an undergraduate degree in mathematics and history from Claremont McKenna College and a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, began his career in Argentina as a corporate banker and is currently a top executive at Citigroup.

"We are pleased to welcome Doug to the important role of president of Standard & Poor's as it continues to build on the enhancements of recent years and accelerates global growth," Harold McGraw III, McGraw-Hill's chief executive, said in a statement.

The US downgrade on August 5, tumbled the stock markets all over the world and sparked the US Treasury and Justice Department to probe the agency's affairs. The rating agency was also criticized by President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

The Justice department is also probing the rating agency's actions over mortgage securities which led to a financial crisis in 2008-09.

Deven Sharma who served as the President of S&P from 2007 had been thinking stepping down well before the latest controversies on the company and has nothing to do with the recent storm over the company, sources related to the matter said.

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