Laurence D. Fink

Laurence D. Fink (born November 2, 1952) is the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock Inc. Popularly known as Larry, he started his career at First Boston upon graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles. Larry earned an MBA at the UCLA Anderson School of Management (then known simply as the UCLA Graduate School of Management) in 1976. After moving on to heading First Boston's Bond Department, Larry was instrumental in the creation and evolution of the mortgage-backed security market in the United States.

In 1989, Larry and some friends went out on their own to start BlackRock, an investment management firm that today manages in excess of $1.3 trillion. He was recently in the news for being considered the top candidate to replace departing Morgan Stanley CEO, Philip Purcell. These talks fell through, however, and shortly thereafter a deal was unveiled in which Merrill Lynch would merge its money management business under BlackRock, resulting in a firm managing nearly $1.3 trillion in assets.

Larry Fink also serves on the Board of Trustees of New York University. He has one son, Joshua, who serves as CEO of Enso Capital Management. The younger Fink earned a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000.

Laurence D. Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock, is Chairman of the Executive and Leadership Committees, Chair of Corporate Council, and Co-Chair of the Global Client committee.

Prior to founding BlackRock in 1988, Mr. Fink was a member of the Management Committee and a Managing Director of The First Boston Corporation. Mr. Fink joined First Boston in 1976 and quickly became one of the first mortgage-backed securities traders on Wall Street. During his tenure at First Boston, Mr. Fink was co-head of the Taxable Fixed Income Division, which was responsible for trading and distribution of all government, mortgage and corporate securities. Mr. Fink also started the Financial Futures and Options Department and headed the Mortgage and Real Estate Products Group. In 1987, Mr. Fink was featured in Investment Dealers' Digest (November 1987) as head of the mortgage-related securities group of "The Ultimate Brokerage Firm," and in 1989, he was featured in The Wall Street Journal Centennial Edition as one of 28 businessmen, all under 45 years old, "...who could be among the business leaders of tomorrow."

Mr. Fink serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of New York University, Chair of the Financial Affairs Committee and a member of the Executive Committee, the Ad Hoc Committee on Board Governance, and the Committee on Trustees. He is also Co-Chairman of the NYU Hospitals Center Board of Trustees, Chairman of the Development/Trustee Stewardship Committee and Chairman of the Finance Committee. Mr. Fink is also a Trustee of The Boys' Club of New York.

Mr. Fink earned an MBA degree with a concentration in real estate from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1976 and a BA degree in political science from UCLA in 1974.