Who Founded BlackRock?

Fink joined First Boston in 1976 and became one of its youngest managing directors, running a mortgage-bond desk that was highly profitable until a 1986 interest-rate move cost it about $100 million. The loss convinced him that Wall Street lacked the tools to measure what it owned. In 1988 he started a bond manager inside the Blackstone Group with seven colleagues, and he has led it through the 1994 sale to PNC, the 1999 IPO, the 2006 merger with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and the 2009 purchase of Barclays Global Investors, which brought iShares. Since 2024 he has pushed BlackRock into infrastructure and private credit through the GIP and HPS deals. His annual letters to CEOs and shareholders are among the most read documents in finance, and his early emphasis on climate risk made BlackRock a target in US politics.

Education: University of California, Los Angeles; UCLA Anderson School of Management. Larry Fink was born in 1952.

Kapito worked alongside Fink at First Boston and joined him in founding BlackRock in 1988. For much of the firm's history he ran the investment side as Vice Chairman and head of the Portfolio Management Group, overseeing the fixed income, equity, liquidity and alternative investment teams. As President he oversees day-to-day operations across the firm and co-hosts the quarterly earnings calls with Fink and CFO Martin Small. Outside BlackRock he sits on the Global Leadership Council of Oxford's Saïd Business School and is a former trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. Robert S. Kapito was born in 1957.

Wagner ran many of the functions that let a small bond shop grow into a global firm, including strategy, corporate development and operations. She led BlackRock's side of the 2006 merger with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and the 2009 acquisition of Barclays Global Investors, the two deals that made BlackRock the world's largest asset manager. After stepping down as Vice Chairman in 2012 she joined BlackRock's board of directors, and in 2014 she was elected to the board of Apple.

Susan Wagner was born in 1961 in Chicago. Education: University of Chicago; Wellesley College; Booth School of Business.

For roughly BlackRock's first two decades Novick ran its global client business, winning the institutional mandates that funded the firm's early growth. She then set up its government relations and public policy group, which represented BlackRock in the post-2008 debate over whether large asset managers should be regulated like banks, and oversaw investment stewardship, the team that votes the proxies of the companies BlackRock's funds hold. She retired from her executive role in 2021 and became a senior adviser to the firm. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Golub led much of the quantitative work behind BlackRock's risk-first approach, building analytics for mortgage prepayment, interest-rate and credit risk that became central to Aladdin. He helped lead BlackRock Solutions, the unit launched in 2000 to sell those analytics and advisory services to other institutions, and as Chief Risk Officer he oversaw risk across BlackRock's investment platform as it grew through the MLIM and BGI deals. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Frater was one of the mortgage specialists who helped launch BlackRock's fixed income business and held senior roles at the firm before leaving. He went on to become non-executive chairman of VEREIT, then moved to Fannie Mae, where he served as interim chief executive from 2018 and later as CEO until his retirement in 2022, leading the mortgage company through the pandemic years. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Schlosstein brought corporate finance and public policy experience to the founding team; before Lehman he worked at the US Treasury and on the White House domestic policy staff during the Carter administration. As BlackRock's President he helped run the business side of the firm through the PNC years, the 1999 IPO and the 2006 MLIM merger. He left in 2007, became CEO of Evercore in 2009 and later served as its Chairman Emeritus. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Anderson ran BlackRock's fixed income investing for two decades, the core of the firm until iShares arrived with the 2009 BGI deal, and sat on its executive committee. In 2008 he left to become Chief Investment Officer of Soros Fund Management. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).