BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) announced today that former McKinsey Director of Knowledge, Lee Kempler, will help leverage the firm's global expertise to generate investment insights that drive enhanced investment performance for clients.
Lee Kempler has joined the firm as Managing Director and Executive Director of the BlackRock Investment Institute, a global platform that will leverage the firm's expertise in markets, asset classes and investor segments to generate insights that augment its ability to create a better financial future for clients.
In this newly created role, Kempler will oversee all operations for the Institute, focusing on the synthesis of ideas generated across the firm's investment platform, an engine for sharing knowledge, and the communication of thought leadership across multiple media.
Kempler comes to BlackRock from McKinsey & Co., where he was a Principal and Director of Knowledge for the global management consulting firm. In this role, he led McKinsey's knowledge function globally and served as part of a small team of functional leaders who ran the administrative side of the firm. He was responsible for the people, processes and technologies that comprised McKinsey's ability to codify and disseminate the world's leading collection of applied business knowledge.
In his new position, Lee reports to Richard Kushel, Head of BlackRock's Portfolio Management Group.
"We are proud to launch the BlackRock Investment Institute, and believe that it highlights our firm's commitment to producing a flow of information that makes us better investors and helps deliver performance for our clients," said Kushel.
"Our clients are increasingly demanding industry-leading intelligence-and they expect us to apply that high level of thinking to their most complex investment challenges," added Kempler. "Through the BlackRock Investment Institute, we will seek to standardize the process of ‘connecting the dots' of innovative investment ideas across the organization, and leverage that knowledge within clients' portfolios."
BlackRock also announced the appointment of Ewen Cameron Watt as Chief Investment Strategist for the Institute. In this role, Ewen will lead the Institute's events and debates that bring together BlackRock's investment leaders, and will continue to chair the firm's Central Strategy Group.
Ewen, who joined the firm in 1985, is a Managing Director and a portfolio manager in BlackRock's Multi-Asset Client Solutions group (BMACS). He will retain certain portfolio management responsibilities in BMACS.
As part of its launch, the BlackRock Investment Institute released its first thought-leadership publication. This white paper, which can be downloaded here, explores the major themes that emerged from the Institute's inaugural Forum, which was held in New York last month and focused on "Sovereign Bonds; Assessing the Risk, Identifying the Opportunities." The BlackRock Investment Institute's Forum series brings together both BlackRock portfolio managers from around the world and external experts to debate critical global investment themes. In addition, the Institute has produced video highlights here of a roundtable featuring senior BlackRock investors, in which the primary issues from the Forum and paper are further examined.
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