Laurence Fink

Laurence Fink earned an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and began his career at First Boston, where he became one of the pioneers of the mortgage-backed securities market in the 1980s. He co-founded BlackRock in 1988 with seven partners, starting in a single room at the Blackstone Group's offices with no assets under management. BlackRock's founding principle was that risk management and analytics should be integrated with investment management — not an afterthought. This principle was embodied in the Aladdin system (Asset Liability Debt and Derivative Investment Network), a proprietary risk management platform that BlackRock built and later began licensing to other financial institutions. Today Aladdin monitors over $20 trillion in assets for hundreds of institutional investors, insurers, and central banks — roughly a third of the world's investable assets. BlackRock grew through organic growth and major acquisitions including Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (2006) and Barclays Global Investors (2009) — which brought the iShares ETF platform, making BlackRock the world's dominant ETF provider. Under Fink's leadership BlackRock has grown to manage over $10 trillion in assets, making it the world's largest asset manager. Fink's annual letters to CEOs — calling for companies to serve all stakeholders, address climate risk, and pursue sustainable purpose — have become influential documents in the global debate on ESG and corporate responsibility.