Robert Kapito
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Robert Steven Kapito (born February 8, 1957) is an American businessman and investor. He is a founder and president of the
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-based investment management firm
BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trill ...
.


Early life and education

Kapito is of
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
ancestry. He earned an
MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from Harvard Business School in
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,
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
(HBS) in 1983 after completing a BS degree in economics from the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
. Kapito met his wife Ellen when she was a student at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (more commonly referred to as Penn Nursing) is an undergraduate and graduate institution at the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia. According to U.S. News & World Report, the Sch ...
.


Career

Kapito joined
First Boston : ''For the company after its acquisition by Credit Suisse, see Credit Suisse First Boston (known as CSFB and CS First Boston)'' The First Boston Corporation was a New York-based bulge bracket investment bank, founded in 1932 and acquired by Cred ...
in 1979 after graduating from Wharton and started in the Public Finance Department. He was hired by Larry Fink to work at First Boston, where they were instrumental in pioneering the
mortgage-backed security A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security (an 'instrument') which is secured by a mortgage or collection of mortgages. The mortgages are aggregated and sold to a group of individuals (a government agency or investment b ...
market in the
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. Kapito left First Boston to complete his MBA degree and returned to the firm in 1983 in the Mortgage Products Group. In 1988, Kapito left First Boston along with Fink and founded BlackRock under the umbrella of the
private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...
firm
Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate bu ...
as partners. Kapito worked closely with Fink at BlackRock, where he developed a reputation as an aggressive and loyal supporter of Fink. In
2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...
, he warned about product shortages and said that "a very entitled generation that has never had to sacrifice" was experiencing inflation for the first time. Kapito serves as a member of the board of trustees of the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
and as a member of a Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education Faculty. He is also president of the board of directors for the Hope & Heroes Children's Cancer Fund and president of the board of directors for Periwinkle Theatre for Youth, a national non-profit arts-in-education organization. In 2012, he received the Gustave L. Levy Award from the
United Jewish Appeal The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that existed from its creation in 1939 until it was folded into the United Jewish Communities, which was formed from the 1999 merger of United Jewish Appeal (UJA), Co ...
Federation of New York for his donations. Kapito is scheduled to speak at the November 2022
Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit The Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit is a financial summit to be hosted in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), scheduled for 1–3 November 2022. Background The initiative was announced by Financial Secretary Paul Ch ...
, with the Hong Kong Democracy Council claiming that his presence, along with other financial executives, legitimizes the Hong Kong government's whitewashing of the erosion of freedoms in the city. Several members of
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
also warned that US financial executives should not attend the Summit, saying "Their presence only serves to legitimise the swift dismantling of Hong Kong's autonomy, free press and the rule of law by Hong Kong authorities acting along with the Chinese Communist Party."


References


External links


Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kapito, Robert S. American financial company founders American financiers American investors 20th-century American Jews American money managers BlackRock people Harvard Business School alumni Jewish American bankers Living people Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni 1957 births 21st-century American Jews