Larry Fink

Fink grew up in Van Nuys, California, where his father owned a shoe store and his mother was an English professor; he has described himself as having been “just an L.A. kid.” He majored in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), earning a BA in 1974, and then studied real estate finance at UCLA’s business school, earning an MBA in 1976.⁠[1][1][1][1][2]

In 1976, at age 23, Fink went to work on Wall Street at the investment bank First Boston, initially trading bonds, then a sleepy backwater; within three years he was put in charge of structuring and trading mortgage-backed securities, a then virtually unknown business, and became one of the market’s pioneers along with Lew Ranieri of Salomon Brothers and others.⁠[1][1][1][1]

By some estimates, he added about $1 billion to First Boston’s bottom line and structured landmark deals such as the 1986 $4.6 billion securitization of GMAC auto loans; he became the youngest managing director in the firm’s history and, at 31, the youngest member of its management committee.⁠[1][1][1]

In the second quarter of 1986, Fink’s department took a huge position based on his prediction that interest rates would rise; when rates suddenly dropped, both the trades and the hedges meant to offset them were wiped out, and the department lost $100 million. He subsequently fell out of favor at the firm; he left First Boston in the spring of 1988, insisting he had not been fired, although a bank spokesman said publicly at the time that “he did not have the option of staying in his current job.”⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

Fink later concluded that the losses occurred because no one really understood the risks involved and that the computer systems and the programs measuring the impact of key variables such as interest rates were inadequate. The experience led him to resolve to build a company that would not only invest money for clients but also offer them sophisticated risk management.⁠[1][1][1]

In 1988, Fink co-founded BlackRock with Rob Kapito, Sue Wagner, Barbara Novick, Ben Golub, Hugh Frater, Ralph Schlosstein and Keith Anderson. The team started under the Blackstone umbrella, whose founders Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman backed it with a $5 million line of credit, and worked out of a tiny office rented in a corner of Bear Stearns’s bond-trading floor. In its early years the firm was known mainly as a fixed income manager.⁠[3][1][1][1][3]

That same year, Fink started an advisory business; his first client was a savings and loan institution, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation later hired him to manage the assets of S&Ls taken over by the government.⁠[1][1][1]

By 1993, Fink’s group had more than $20 billion under management. In 1994, after a dispute with Stephen Schwarzman over the unit’s share of Blackstone’s equity, the two sides split; Blackstone sold its 32% stake in the business to PNC, a Pittsburgh bank, which paid $240 million for the entire company. BlackRock’s merger with PNC Bank was completed in 1995, bringing the firm expanded capabilities and distribution.⁠[1][1][1][3]

Also in 1994, the investment bank Kidder Peabody collapsed, and its parent General Electric brought in Fink to help liquidate and sell down Kidder’s $7 billion portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, a deal that put him on the map.⁠[1][1]

In October 1999, BlackRock went public on the New York Stock Exchange with broad employee ownership, and its founders were invited to ring the opening bell. As of April 2026, Fink had served 26 years on BlackRock’s board and chaired its executive committee.⁠[3][4]

In 2000, BlackRock formally created its BlackRock Solutions division, which used the firm’s Aladdin risk management system to provide portfolio evaluation, risk analysis and long-term management services to outside clients; Aladdin later became the core platform of the firm’s technology services business.⁠[1][1][1]

In 2003, when the $190 million pay package of New York Stock Exchange chief executive Richard Grasso set off a board crisis, Fink, then an NYSE director, helped broker Grasso’s resignation along with Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry chief executive Hank Paulson and others.⁠[1][1][1]

Under Fink, BlackRock bought State StreetState StreetState Street Corporation is a Boston-based US financial services group serving institutional investors through investment servicing, investment management and market services. Its businesses include custody, fund accounting and administration, investment software and SPDR funds. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange as STT.Open the full entry Research & Management for $375 million in 2004, merged with the $544 billion Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in 2006 and acquired the fund of funds Quellos in 2007, expanding from bonds into equities, hedge funds, real estate and exchange-traded funds. A full-page advertisement announcing the Merrill Lynch Investment Managers merger ran in The Wall Street Journal on October 3, 2006.⁠[1][1][1][1][3]

In 2006, BlackRock and the developer Tishman Speyer bought the Manhattan housing complex Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion; the deal went into default in early 2010, becoming one of the firm’s costliest public mistakes for its clients.⁠[1][1]

During the 2008 financial crisis, top officials at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York turned to Fink for advice on the markets and for help with matters including the $30 billion financing of JPMorgan’s purchase of Bear Stearns and the $180 billion bailout of AIG. BlackRock won a series of government contracts, overseeing the $130 billion of toxic assets the government took on in the Bear Stearns sale and the AIG rescue and monitoring the balance sheets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.⁠[1][1][1]

That these contracts were awarded without competitive bidding and in secrecy raised hackles in Congress and led to questions about Fink’s long-standing relationships with senior officials such as then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and about how BlackRock handled potential conflicts of interest.⁠[1][1]

On June 11, 2009, BlackRock announced an agreement with BarclaysBarclaysBarclays is a banking and financial services group headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with Barclays PLC as its parent company. It traces its origins to a London goldsmith bank established in 1690 and developed through bank mergers, overseas expansion and investment banking reorganisations. Its businesses span UK retail and corporate banking, private banking and wealth management, global investment banking and US consumer banking.Open the full entry to acquire Barclays Global Investors (BGI), including its ETF platform iShares, in exchange for 37.8 million shares of BlackRock common and common-equivalent stock and $6.6 billion in cash.⁠[5][5]

On December 1, 2009, BlackRock completed its merger with BGI and retained the iShares brand; Fink said the combined firm managed about $3.2 trillion for institutional and retail investors worldwide. With the completion of the $13.5 billion acquisition, BlackRock became the largest money-management firm in the world at the time.⁠[6][6][6][1]

In his 2018 letter to CEOs, “A Sense of Purpose,” Fink wrote that society is demanding that companies serve a social purpose and that, to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.⁠[7][7][7]

In his 2020 letter to CEOs, “A Fundamental Reshaping of Finance,” Fink argued that “climate risk is investment risk” and announced that BlackRock would make sustainability integral to portfolio construction and risk management, exit investments with high sustainability-related risk such as thermal coal producers, and launch new products that screen out fossil fuels.⁠[8][8][8]

In his 2022 letter to CEOs, “The Power of Capitalism,” Fink set out “stakeholder capitalism,” saying it is not about politics, not a social or ideological agenda and not “woke,” but capitalism driven by mutually beneficial relationships between companies and their employees, customers, suppliers and communities.⁠[9][9][9]

Fink’s 2024 letter to investors, themed “Time to rethink retirement,” called for an organized, high-level national effort on the retirement crisis, similar to the responses to the financial crisis and to semiconductor supply chain fragility; under the heading “Energy pragmatism,” the letter also discussed investment in energy infrastructure.⁠[10][10][10]

BlackRock completed its acquisition of the infrastructure investor Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) in October 2024, acquired the private markets data provider Preqin in March 2025 for £2.5 billion (about $3.2 billion) in cash, and completed its acquisition of the credit manager HPS Investment Partners on July 1, 2025. As of December 31, 2025, BlackRock had $14.0 trillion in assets under management.⁠[11][11][11][11]

In digital assets, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF was incepted on January 5, 2024.⁠[12]

Fink’s 2025 letter to investors was themed “The democratization of investing.” He wrote that if the U.S. does not get its debt under control and deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing the dollar’s reserve-currency position to digital assets like Bitcoin; at the same time, he said he is not anti-digital assets and called decentralized finance an extraordinary innovation.⁠[13][13][13][13]

The letter said that every stock, every bond, every fund, indeed every asset, can be tokenized, and that if they are, it will revolutionize investing; he said he expects tokenized funds one day to become as familiar to investors as ETFs, provided the problem of digital identity verification is solved.⁠[13][13]

Fink’s 2026 letter to investors, titled “Growing with your country: Thoughts from a long-term optimist,” argued for broadening long-term investing through retirement systems, earlier access and modernized markets. He wrote that he and Rob Goldstein believe tokenization today may be roughly where the internet was in 1996 and will not replace the existing financial system overnight.⁠[14][14][14][14]

The letter said iShares had another record year in 2025 with $527 billion of net inflows, and that BlackRock aims to deliver more than $35 billion in revenue by 2030, with 30% or more coming from private markets and technology.⁠[14][14]

On July 15, 2026, BlackRock reported second-quarter results: first-half flows more than doubled year over year and assets under management reached a record $15.3 trillion. Fink said market fundamentals were strong and well supported, with higher margins and earnings momentum catalyzed by new technology.⁠[15][15][15]

On October 14, 2026, BlackRock reported third-quarter results, with $15.5 trillion in assets under management as of September 30, 2026, and $869 billion of net inflows over the previous 12 months.⁠[16][16]

As of April 2026, Fink served as co-chair of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum and co-chair of NYU Langone Medical Center, sat on the boards of the Museum of Modern Art and the Aspen Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Partnership for New York City.⁠[4][4]

As chairman and chief executive, Fink is responsible for senior leadership development and succession planning, defining and reinforcing BlackRock’s vision and culture, and engaging with key strategic clients, industry leaders, regulators and policymakers. BlackRock’s board compensation committee set his 2025 total annual compensation at $45 million, comprising a $1.5 million base salary, a $10,567,500 annual cash bonus, an $8,432,500 annual RSU incentive and a $24.5 million BPIP equity award.⁠[4][4]

BlackRock: Official website: https://www.blackrock.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]