This content is from: Portfolio
The 2016 Tech 50: Robert Goldstein
BlackRock’s COO comes in at No. 7 on this year’s Tech 50 ranking.

Since becoming chief operating officer of $4.6 trillion-in-assets money manager BlackRock in July 2014, Robert Goldstein has held on to his previous responsibilities as global head of BlackRock Solutions, the technology arm that includes the Aladdin portfolio and risk management systems business and posted $646 million in revenue last year. Goldstein is currently focused on taking BlackRock’s historically institutional technology into the retail realm. The route to mainstream investors goes through FutureAdvisor, a San Francisco–based digital, or “robo,” wealth manager that BlackRock acquired last September, and distribution partnerships with the likes of LPL Financial and RBC Wealth Management. “We’ve taken what we believe is the leading platform for digital advice and we’re institutionalizing it,” says Goldstein, 42, who joined BlackRock as an analyst in 1994, moved to BlackRock Solutions at its start in 1999 and has headed the unit since 2009. “The regulatory environment is helping support an increasing need for risk transparency across all these end-customer portfolios,” Goldstein adds. “We’re delivering best-in-class portfolio construction, risk analytics and content.” He stresses that the New York–based firm is continuing to invest in Aladdin as its core system “while also leveraging new technology to open Aladdin and make its data more accessible in this world of everybody being a data scientist.” Aladdin’s revenue jumped to $528 million in 2015 from $474 million the year before, Goldstein says, with more than half of the total coming from global clients, up from 20 percent in 2010. BlackRock has introduced a version of Aladdin for custodians, fund accountants and other service providers; JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s securities services business is a new client. Goldstein muses that computing advances could significantly change traditional exception-based work flows, which are designed to identify problems needing human intervention. “We never figured out as an industry why the computer can’t do it,” he says. “If technology can identify the problem, why can’t it fix the problem?”
![]() 2. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange ![]() 3. Lance Uggla Markit ![]() 4. Phupinder Gill CME Group ![]() 5. Shawn Edwards and Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg ![]() 6. R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group |
![]() 7. Robert Goldstein BlackRock ![]() 8. Adena Friedman Nasdaq ![]() 9. Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures ![]() 10. Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings ![]() 11. Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments ![]() 12. David Craig Thomson Reuters |
![]() 13. Michael Spencer ICAP ![]() 14. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. ![]() 15. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing ![]() 16. Chris Concannon BATS Global Markets ![]() 17. Blythe Masters Digital Asset Holdings ![]() 18. David Rutter R3CEV |
![]() 19. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw & Co. ![]() 20. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets ![]() 21. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings ![]() 22. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings ![]() 23. Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp. ![]() 24. Brad Katsuyama IEX Group |
![]() 25. Antoine Shagoury State Street Corp. ![]() 26. David Gledhill DBS Bank ![]() 27. Lou Eccleston TMX Group ![]() 28. Andreas Preuss Deutsche BÖrse ![]() 29. Dan Schulman PayPal Holdings ![]() 30. Scott Dillon Wells Fargo & Co. |
![]() 31. Mike Chinn S&P Global Market Intelligence ![]() 32. Craig Donohue Options Clearing Corp. ![]() 33. Gary Norcross Fidelity National Information Services ![]() 34. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix ![]() 35. Sebastián Ceria Axioma ![]() 36. Michael Cooper BT Radianz |
![]() 37. Tyler Kim MaplesFS ![]() 38. Neal Pawar AQR Capital Management ![]() 39. David Harding Winton Capital Management ![]() 40. Chris Corrado London Stock Exchange Group ![]() 41. Brian Conlon First Derivatives ![]() 42. Jim Minnick eVestment |
![]() 43. Stephane Dubois Xignite ![]() 44. Mazy Dar OpenFin ![]() 45. Yasuki Okai NRI Holdings America ![]() 46. Kim Fournais Saxo Bank ![]() 47. Jock Percy Perseus ![]() 48. Robert Schifellite Broadridge Financial Solutions |
![]() 49. Brian Sentance Xenomorph Software ![]() 50. Pieter van der Does Adyen |