Joe Linhares, BlackRock’s head of iShares in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is stepping down from his role and will be replaced by Rachel Lord, Citigroup’s global head of corporate equity derivatives, Financial News has learnt.
Lord to replace Linhares at iShares Linhares will return to the US to take on an undefined role that will be confirmed in “autumn”, according to an internal memo from David Blumer, head of Emea at BlackRock, and Mark Wiedman, global head of iShares. A spokesman for the world’s largest fund manager confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to comment further.Rachel Lord, who joined Citi in 2009 after 13 years at Morgan Stanley, was the US bank’s global head of corporate equity derivatives, a unit that works with clients with large, strategic equity stakes. The unit’s work includes a variety of risk management, financing, and hedging deals for clients.
Her hire comes as BlackRock attempts to expand the breadth of exchange-traded funds in Europe.
The memo said: “Our primary challenge in Europe is growing the pie – expanding the ways clients use ETFs. Rachel brings together a number of capabilities we believe are essential for this next era of iShares in Emea. Rachel has a deep understanding of capital markets, has built her whole career around problem-solving to meet clients’ investment needs, has a strong ability to grow people and teams, and knows how to deliver the best of a global organization to clients.”
In her new role, Lord will join the iShares global and Emea executive committees, as well as the fund manager’s global operating committee.
An internal memo at Citi, seen by Financial News, said Lord had decided to leave the firm “and pursue an opportunity with one of our most important clients”.
The memo said: “Rachel has done an outstanding job building our Global Corporate Equity Derivative business and helping to maintain an industry leading position.”
Lord was named on Financial News' list of the 100 most influential women in finance last year.
Linhares moved to Europe in 2010 to help build the iShares business in the region. iShares’ Emea business had $174 billion in assets at the end of June, up from $107 billion in June 2010, the BlackRock memo said.
As part of a push to develop new products, BlackRock also named a new Emea head of product development at iShares this month. Tom Fekete joined iShares from Barclays Wealth, where he was Emea head of investment products and global head of foreign exchange advisory.
BlackRock had $3.86 trillion in assets under management at the end of the second quarter.
