BLACKROCK INVESTMENT INSTITUTE

BII: Who we are

The BlackRock Investment Institute (BII) leverages the firm’s expertise and generates proprietary research to provide insights on the global economy, markets, sustainability, geopolitics and long-term asset allocation – all to help our clients and portfolio managers navigate financial markets. BII offers strategic and tactical market views, publications and digital data tools.

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Our aim is to secure a better financial future for our clients by helping them make smarter whole-portfolio decisions and plan for the long term. Explore the tabs below, learn about our areas of focus and meet our team.

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Jean Boivin Jean Boivin Head of the BlackRock Investment Institute (BII)
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We leverage expertise

The BlackRock Investment Institute (BII) was established in 2011 in the midst of the European debt crisis when it became clear BlackRock needed a forum to analyze seismic market events across asset classes. We harness the full BlackRock platform through dialogue, research, and engagement with our clients to establish our asset class views and to create intellectual and thought-provoking content.

BII grew significantly in 2016 under BlackRock Vice Chairman Philipp Hildebrand. We expanded our macro team and added a global network of strategists to provide actionable market views and proprietary research.

We also built up our geopolitical expertise under BII Chairman Tom Donilon, and showcase some of our research in this area on our BlackRock geopolitical risk dashboard. BII’s mandate evolved in 2019 to integrate macro and market views with insights on portfolio construction to provide clients with the long-term perspective they need today.

Philipp Hildebrand
Vice Chairman
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Thomas Donilon
Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute
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Macro research

We generate in-depth, proprietary economic and markets research for BlackRock’s portfolio managers and clients. We share these through internal notes, our Investment perspectives publication, the Macro take blog series and our proprietary data on the BlackRock macro dashboard.

Portfolio research

The nature of portfolio diversification is changing. At BlackRock, we focus on creating real resilience for the whole portfolio with the aim to create better long-term financial futures for our clients.

This is about ensuring the portfolio is well positioned at a more granular level to underlying themes, including sustainability. The most important action investors need to take today, in our view, is to review their strategic asset allocation to ensure portfolios are resilient to the supercharged trends accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our Portfolio Research group is responsible for developing the core principles and intellectual property that underpin BlackRock's approach to portfolio design, such as capital market assumptions and optimization tools.

Our capital market assumptions are part of our wider portfolio construction toolkit. Using our capital market assumptions, which explicitly account for uncertainty and different pathways for asset class returns, we can employ robust optimization techniques to design hypothetical downside-aware strategic portfolios.

Sustainability research

Our approach to sustainability is rooted in our fiduciary duty to our clients. We do not dictate how clients should invest their money. The money we manage is not our own; it belongs to our clients.

We seek the best risk-adjusted financial returns for clients in investments and stewardship. We cannot ignore sustainability in this pursuit. It drives material investment risks and opportunities, just like central bank policy and digitalization. We research sustainability dispassionately. We focus on how it is likely to play out in portfolios, not on how anyone thinks it should play out. We implement the implications in our investment processes, alongside other drivers of risk and return.

Alex Brazier
Deputy Head and Interim Head of Macro Research, BlackRock Investment Institute
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Vivek Paul
Head of Portfolio Research, BlackRock Investment Institute
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Christopher Kaminker
Head of BlackRock Sustainable Investment and Research Analytics

Research team

Carolina Martinez Arevalo
Portfolio research
Benjamin Attia
Sustainability research
Debarshi Basu
Sustainability research
Michelle Bolten
BII strategy
Lynsey Connell
Sustainability research
Michel Dilmanian
Portfolio research
Nicholas Fawcett
Macro research
Natalie Gill, CFA
Portfolio research
Paul Henderson
Portfolio research
Tara Iyer
Macro research
Nadine Kesten
Portfolio research
Catherine Kress
Geopolitical risk
Manling Li
Sustainability research
Emily McGlynn
Sustainability research
Andreea Mitrache
Portfolio research
Devan Nathwani
Portfolio research
Christian Olinger
Portfolio research
Norbert Palmai
Portfolio research
Lilla Petroczki
Portfolio research
Ambrus Pleibeisz
Portfolio research
Lora Qian
Portfolio research
Jackson Spivey
Geopolitical risk
Yuxi Suo
Sustainability research
Laszlo Tisler
Portfolio research
Jessica Thye
Sustainability research
Chris Weber
Sustainability research
Elaine Wu
Sustainability research

Portfolio research and return expectations

For institutional professionals only.
Thumb: Portfolio research and return expectations

Actionable investment insights

Our global strategist team develops actionable, tactical views for our clients and client-facing professionals. Our Global weekly commentary and Global investment outlook bring our tactical views to life. The team has representatives in key markets in the Americas, Asia and Europe who also bring local intelligence to BII and BlackRock’s portfolio managers.

Wei Li
Global Chief Investment Strategist
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Ben Powell
APAC Chief Investment Strategist
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Global strategist network
Axel Christensen
Lukas Daalder
Beata Harasim
Martin Lueck
Vivek Paul
Ann-Katrin Petersen
Bruno Rovelli

We curate intellectual and thought-provoking content to help drive better investment decisions. Internal summaries of debates and other events we organize for our portfolio managers are the starting point. We provide a slice of these insights from BlackRock thought leaders to clients in our external publications, digital experiences and across social media platforms.

Investment outlook forum

Over 100 BlackRock portfolio managers, strategists and executives gather twice every year to debate the outlook for the economy, markets and geopolitics. We summarize the key takeaways in our Global Investment Outlook publication and digital experience. An accompanying chart deck is refreshed several times a year.

Daily global meeting

BlackRock portfolio managers and strategists around the world gather daily to discuss market news, share investment views and debate a topical weekly question posed by a rotating chair. 

Jack Reerink
Head of Publications and Business Operations
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Publishing and operations team
Scott Barber
Eric Burroughs
Chloe Li
Janyne Quarm
Sebastian Silva
Vikram Subhedar
Carolyn Tyler

BLACKROCK INVESTMENT INSTITUTE

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