BlackRock has made a number of changes to its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) business that will see its mutual fund sales team merge with the iShares EMEA sales team.
Ivan Pascual, head of ETF and indexing sales, EMEA, at BlackRock will head-up this new team which is responsible for distributing the firm’s entire fund range to wealth and asset management clients.
In his new role, Pascual will jointly report to Stephen Cohen, head of iShares, EMEA, at BlackRock, and Michael Gruener, head of wealth, EMEA, at BlackRock.
Along with merging its mutual fund and ETF sales team, the firm is creating an EMEA wealth business led by Gruener.
As part of this, BlackRock has launched a Wealth Solutions Group (WSG), which looks to target the growing demand from wealth managers who want to either co-create or entirely outsource investment propositions.
In a note to employees, Rachel Lord, head of EMEA at BlackRock, said the changes were driven by the evolving investment landscape of a greater focus on cost, transparency and investor protections.
Lord (pictured) said these factors are “challenging legacy technology platforms, transforming our wealth and asset management clients’ investment practices, and driving a search for efficiency and better outcomes”.
“This is accelerating our clients’ shift to adopting a whole-portfolio approach – harnessing the power of technology, data and investments,” she added.
Lord concluded: “This re-organisation presents significant progression and career opportunities for our client-facing teams, aligning our salesforce and platform to allocate resources to the areas where we see the greatest growth opportunities for the firm.”
