More than any year before, 2020 highlighted the benefits of our unified Aladdin platform. Aladdin enabled us to rebuild BlackRock beyond its walls and deliver operational resilience, advice and solutions for our clients. Aladdin also enabled more than 250 third-party Aladdin clients – asset managers, asset owners, banks and insurance clients – to operate seamlessly during this time.
Our strong 2020 performance was possible because of the dedication and tireless effort of our 16,500 employees. Throughout the past year, we have kept the health and safety of our employees and their families as the top priority. We committed to our employees, including those whose jobs were dependent on people being in the office, that we would not eliminate any roles as a result of the pandemic in 2020. We also implemented efforts to support employees, including company-paid COVID-19 diagnostic and antibody testing, and free on-demand physical, mental and emotional healthcare programs.
BlackRock’s success in 2020 meant we were able to do more to support our communities when they needed it most. We committed to donating $50 million to COVID-19 relief efforts, and to date, we have deployed more than half of this commitment to 60 food relief, community support and frontline response organizations serving the hardest-hit areas across 18 countries. BlackRock is also helping people in vulnerable communities build financial stability through job readiness programs and access to saving strategies and tools. By supporting organizations such as Generation, which trains job seekers across 14 countries with the skills necessary to access stable employment in high-demand sectors, BlackRock is advancing our purpose of helping more and more people experience financial well-being.
The importance of our culture
As I think about how far BlackRock has come in serving our clients and delivering for shareholders since becoming a public company, culture has been critical to creating value.
Through most of the past year, more than 90% of BlackRock employees worked from their homes. During these times, I realized the strength of our culture, how it binds us together and how it propels us forward. It’s reflected in: our employees’ deep sense of responsibility to help more and more people experience financial well-being; BlackRock’s investment in our employees, their families and communities; and in our commitment to running our business sustainably for the benefit of all stakeholders.
We never take our culture for granted. It’s why we invest so heavily and consistently in cultivating it and are relentless at ensuring that it is lived each day. Working from home makes it difficult, however, to nurture our culture in the same way we’re able to in person. We have employees, including more than 400 graduate program analysts, who have never set foot in our offices nor met their colleagues face-to-face. I firmly believe the culture we want can’t be built or maintained remotely over the long term and I am looking forward to having more people return to the office.
BlackRock’s high-performance culture is what enables us to stay ahead of clients’ needs. It challenges us to be forward-thinkers, problem solvers and innovators. A high-performance culture also requires diversity, empathy, equity, respect and inclusion.
I know our culture is not perfect. It depends on the contribution of 16,500 individuals. And in some cases, certain employees have not upheld BlackRock’s standards. I have made it clear to employees that we want to know when that happens, and those individuals don’t have a place at BlackRock. Rooting out misconduct – and ensuring an environment that doesn’t allow it – is critical to building the culture we all aspire to and ensuring everyone can experience BlackRock at its best. That is why we are taking a number of actions internally to promote an environment of respect and inclusivity and making enhancements to our processes for investigating employee complaints. At the same time, we have retained an external law firm to conduct a review of recent reports of employee-workplace matters and to provide recommendations on how we might further enhance our processes and procedures.
BlackRock must have a supportive, welcoming, inclusive and equitable work environment. This includes drawing on the expertise of people with varied backgrounds and perspectives.