Akiva Dickstein, Managing Director, is Head of Customized Core Portfolios within BlackRock's Americas Fixed Income Alpha Strategies and a member of the Americas Fixed Income Executive Team. Prior to his current role, he was the lead manager for the firm's mortgage portfolios.

Before joining BlackRock in 2009, Mr. Dickstein spent eight years at Merrill Lynch, where he served as Managing Director and head of the U.S. Rates & Structured Credit Research Group. He was responsible for the team that produced MBS, ABS, CMBS, Treasuries, swaps, and interest rate derivatives research. Mr. Dickstein's publications on MBS strategy included the weekly Mortgage Investor as well as numerous lengthier articles on topics such as optimal loan modifications, the valuation of credit-sensitive MBS and ABS, and the pricing of mortgage derivatives, options, and pass-throughs. In addition, he developed Merrill's prepayment models for fixed rate and hybrid MBS. From 1993 to 2001, Mr. Dickstein was with Lehman Brothers, most recently as a Senior Vice President in Mortgage Derivatives Trading. In this role, he traded mortgage derivatives and developed Lehman's credit default model. He joined Lehman as a mortgage and asset-backed securities analyst and was named to Institutional Investor's All American Fixed Income Research Team in pass-throughs, non-agency mortgages, and asset-backed securities.

Mr. Dickstein earned a BA degree in economics, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1990, and an MA degree in physics from Princeton University in 1993.

Matthew Kraeger, Managing Director, is lead portfolio manager for mortgage portfolios on BlackRock's Global Fixed Income platform. He is responsible for the Mortgage Portfolio Team.

Mr. Kraeger has been a portfolio manager within the mortgage team since 2004, serving as a PM across both institutional accounts and retail funds. Mr. Kraeger has been a PM on the BlackRock GNMA Fund, which was ranked first in the Lipper Fund GNMA category for both 2008 and 2009 3 year periods, along with the BlackRock U.S. Mortgage Fund and the U.S. Government Bond Portfolio which was ranked first in its Lipper Fund category for the 2015 3 year period. Mr. Kraeger began his investment career as an analyst in BlackRock's operations department in 2000 and joined the Portfolio Analytics Group in 2002.

Mr. Kraeger earned a BS degree in finance from Syracuse University in 2000.

Michael Heilbronn, Director,  is a member of the Core PM SMA Team in Princeton for BlackRock's Managed Account business within the Portfolio Management Group (PMG). In this capacity, he is responsible for managing mid-sized institutional taxable bond portfolios. Additionally, Michael is part of a liaison team that coordinates the SMA fixed income portfolio strategy and credit research with the rest of the firm. He works closely with each group to facilitate idea sharing and trade ideas across portfolios.

Michael’s service with the firm dates back to 1998, including his years with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), which merged with BlackRock in 2006. At MLIM, he was a product specialist for the firm's entire range of fixed income portfolios, and also served as an associate asset management advisor. Michael joined MLIM in 2000, after working with the mutual funds marketing team at the Merrill Lynch Private Client Group for two years.

Michael earned a BS degree from the Pennsylvania State University in 1998.