Vanguard Group, the world's largest investment fund firm, has hired Salim Ramji, former global head of corporate strategy at BlackRock, as its new CEO.
Ramji has also joined Vanguard's Board of Directors, according to a press release issued Tuesday.
The company noted that Ramji is replacing Tim Buckley as CEO. For his part, Ramji said who, from his new position, will drive Vanguard's growth into the future.
Salim Ramji guided the launch of BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF
Vanguard has hired a finance veteran, who has more than 25 years of experience in investments, capital markets and wealth management. But, Ramji is also a cryptocurrency enthusiast, digital assets and blockchain technology.
For a decade, Ramji served as a senior leader at BlackRock and was global head of iShares & Index Investing, a role in which he contributed to the company's growth efforts in the ETF market. Likewise, Ramji led the launch of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which was approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 10.
In relation to this, Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at Bloomberg, commented on the interest that Ramji has expressed in digital assets and, although this may not be representative for Vanguard at this time, he believes that, in the future, his hiring as CEO It could open the door to new opportunities in the crypto market.
Vanguard has chosen to maintain a distant approach to cryptocurrencies until now, considering it to be an emerging digital asset class that it believes could be “a fad.”
In 2022, the company said that cryptocurrencies did not fit into its investment philosophy because they are highly speculative and have significant price volatility. Vanguard also noted that cryptocurrencies had gained quite a bit of popularity as investment assets at the time, but that it did not recommend its investors own these digital assets because they only generated quick profits and “there is no evidence that they are designed for the long term.” Curiously, when Vanguard published this note, on April 20, 2022, the price of Bitcoin, the main cryptocurrency on the market, was around $40.000. At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin exceeds $62.000 per unit.
JPMorgan-backed Partior also hires tech enthusiast
Humphrey Valenbreder, former COO of Bunq, has joined JPMorgan-backed Partior as its new CEO. This hiring comes after the departure of Jason Thompson in January.
Now Valenbreder is tasked with leading the company that operates an interbank wholesale cross-border payments network based on blockchain technology. Partior, backed by JPMorgan and other major banks around the world, uses blockchain to address the shortcomings of the current financial system by automating, streamlining and securing its processes. With this, Partior is also unlocking new capabilities in the financial markets.
In relation to blockchain, Valenbreder recognizes that this technology is driving innovation in the financial system, allowing it to meet the changing needs of clients and improve connectivity between the world's main financial centers.
Main image of the economic newspaper LesEchos
