BlackRock, Inc.

BlackRock, Inc. stands as a globally recognized investment management powerhouse, publicly owned and operating across a diverse range of financial markets. Its services are primarily targeted towards a broad spectrum of investors: from institutional, intermediary, and individual investors to a wider audience including pension plans, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and public institutions. Its portfolio includes corporate bodies, banks, charities, foundations, and governments, showcasing a worldwide investment reach.

Beyond mere investment management, BlackRock also offers robust risk management and advisory services, adding another dimension to its comprehensive financial portfolio. It manages bespoke client portfolios focused on equity, fixed income, and balanced assets.

In the realm of investment vehicles, BlackRock exhibits an extensive array: it initiates and oversees open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, as well as alternative investment vehicles such as structured funds. It is adept in launching a variety of mutual funds, including equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate. Furthermore, it displays a strong foothold in exchange-traded funds, covering domains like equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset classes. Additionally, BlackRock also engages in the management of hedge funds.

When it comes to investment strategies, BlackRock has a strong presence across public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets on a global scale. It diversifies its portfolio by investing in growth and value stocks of companies across different market capitalizations. The firm also pursues investment-grade municipal securities, government securities, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities.

To ensure effective and efficient investments, BlackRock applies a combination of fundamental and quantitative analyses, using a balanced blend of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Its strategies also encompass liquidity, asset allocation, real estate, and alternative investment. In the real estate sector, it shows a particular interest in markets like Poland and Germany.

In terms of performance evaluation, BlackRock benchmarks its portfolios against well-established indices like S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch.

Founded in 1988 and headquartered in New York City, BlackRock extends its global footprint with additional offices in key cities worldwide such as Boston, London, Gurgaon, Hong Kong, Greenwich, Princeton, Edinburgh, Sydney, Taipei, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Toronto, Wilmington, and San Francisco.

Team

The Global Executive Committee

Larry Fink - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Laurence D. Fink is one of the seven founders of BlackRock, and has been a large influence in its leadership since ints foundation in 1988. Prior to founding BlackRock he earned an MBA at the University of Los Angeles in 1976 and a BA from UCLA in 1974 and worked for The First Boston Corporation, an investment bank, being part of its management committee and a managing director. Additionally he is currently a member of a number of associations, including the Board of Trustees of New York University (NYU), the World Economic Forum, the board of the council of foreign relations, the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing and on the Executive Committee of the Partnership for New York City.

Rob Kapito - President

Rob Kapito is also one of the seven founders of BlackRock in 1988. Since 2007 he has been part of BlackRocks Global Executive Committee, Chairman of the Global Operating Committee and Director and President of BlackRock. Prior to founding BlackRock he achieved a bachelor in economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1979 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1983. Furthermore he served as Vice President in the Mortgage Products Group at The First Boston Corporation before co-founding BlackRock. He is member of many associations, including being the President of the Board of Directors for the Hope & Heroes Children's Cancer Fund, recipient of the 2009 Joseph Wharton Leadership Award and the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation's 2010 Semper Fidelis Award.

Joud Abdel Majeid - Global Head of Investment Stewardship

Joud Abdel Majeid is Global Head of Investment Stewardship for BlackRock, a Senior Managing Director and a member of BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2017, Ms Abdel earned a bachelor's degree in finance and economics from Elmhurst College and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. Additionally she has previously worked as a management consultant at Booz & Company and Head of Strategy and Corporate Development at E*TRADE Financial.

Lance Braunstein - Head of Aladdin Engineering

Lance is Head of Aladdin Engineering, a member of the BlackRock Global Executive Committee and a senior managing Director for BlackRock. Before joining BlackRock Lance achieved a BA in mathematics at the University of Rochester, a MS in Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Previously he as worked as CIO at E*TRADE and CIO at OptionsHouse, which was acquired by E*TRADE in 2016. Additionally he has worked for a total of 19 years at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

Susan Chan - Head of Greater China

Susan is Head of Greater China, Senior Managing Director, Deputy Head of Asia Pacific, Head of Trading, Liquidity and Lending Asia Pacific and a member of BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. She is responsible for BlackRocks investments, products and greater business in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Prior to working at BlackRock she graduated at Boston University and worked as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank AG, Hong Kong and as Managing Director at Barclays Capital Asia Limited where she held various leadership positions.

Samara Cohen - Chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments

Samara is BlackRocks chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments business, leading a team which seeks to lead in the modernisation of the index industry and ETF markets, including risk managers, platform architects, product operating model designers, platform architects and portfolio managers. Before joining BlackRock Samara earned a bachelors in Finance from Wharton School, a bachelors in Theatre Arts from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has previously worked as Chief Operating Officer of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Americas Sales and the led the Global Market Transition team. She has also worked at Goldman Sachs.

Stephen Cohen - Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa

Stephen is Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, chairs the EMEA Executive Committee and is member of the BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. Prior Stephen earned a First Class honours degree in Economics from the University of Southampton in 1996. Before joining BlackRock in 2011, he was Global Head of Equity Linked Strategy at Nomura, and has also worked at ING Barings. Stephen started his career working in fixed income at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in 1996.

Edwin Conway - Global Head of Equity Private Markets

Edwin N. Conway was been named Global Head of EPM in 2023, is Senior Managing Director and a member of BlackRocks Global Executive Committee. He is responsible for direct private equity, infrastructure, real estate and secondaries. Prior to joining BlackRock Edwin earned a bachelors from the University College Dublin, worked as Executive Director at Arden Asset Management, Inc., Director at Credit Suisse Asset Management and Senior Managing Director at The Blackstone Group.

Edward Fishwick - Chief Risk Officer and Head of the Risk and Quantitative Analysis

Edward J. Fishwick is responsible for BlackRock's investment and enterprise risk. He is Chief Risk officer, chair of BlackRock's Enterprise Risk Management Committee and a member of the Global Executive Committee. Prior, Ed earned a BA in Economics from the University of Liverpool and studied postgraduate economics at the University of Cambridge. He has worked in a variety of positions, including Head of Risk Management and Investment Process Research at AXA Investment Managers, Head of Research at Franklin Portfolio Managers in Boston and Merrill Lynch Investment Management prior to it getting acquired by BlackRock in 2006.

Robert Goldstein - Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Goldstein is BlackRock's Chief Operating Officer, a Senior Managing Director, co-chair of the Global Operating Committee and a member of the Global Executive Committee. He has worked at BlackRock for more than 20 years, starting as analyst in BlackRock's Portfolio Analytics Group in 1994, and being instrumental in developing BlackRock's processes and capabilities. Previously he earned a bachelors degree in economics from the Binghamton University in 1994. He has twice been named to Fortune's "40 under 40" list.