Frank Porcelli is handing over the U.S. retail reins at BlackRock [profile], yet he's not leaving.

Francis Porcelli BlackRock Managing Director, Head of U.S. Wealth Advisory

Yesterday Larry Fink (chairman and CEO of BlackRock) and Rob Fairbairn (global head of retail and iShares) informed their team via a memo that Porcelli, head of U.S. wealth advisory, will be succeeded by Salim Ramji. Porcelli will become chairman of USWA. Both Porcelli and Ramji will report to Fairbairn.

Sabrina Willmer of Bloomberg broke the news.

Ramji joined BlackRock last year as head of corporate strategy. Geraldine Buckingham, head of Americas strategy, will succeed Ramji as head of corporate strategy and report to Fink himself. There's no word yet on how Buckingham's old duties will be handled.

As of June 30, BlackRock had $4.72 trillion in AUM, more than any other asset manager in the globe. USWA now has $980 billion in AUM, nearly 21 percent of BlackRock's total. And the memo confirms that USWA brings in more than $3.5 billion in annual revenue; that's nearly 32 percent of BlackRock's $11.081 billion in total revenue last year.

In the memo, a copy of which was obtained by MFWire, Fink and Fairbairn praise Porcelli as "the architect of [BlackRock's] retail business strategy and a driver of USWA's success." Porcelli has led the business for 11 years, and now he "step back from managing that business day to day" to focus instead "on developing offerings for emerging channels such as FutureAdvisor," the roboadvisor BlackRock is about to acquire.

"We see significant opportunities ahead for our retail franchise," Fink and Fairbairn write in the memo. "No other firm has our breadth of clinet-focused products and services. We also are pioneering new ways to engage home offices, advisors and investors in critical conversations around retirement and building better portfolios."

An alumnus of the University of Toronto and of Cambridge, Ramji was a lawyer in London and Hong Kong, specializing in corporate finance and M&A. He later became a senior partner at McKinsey, lead its asset management and retirement practice areas.

An alumnus of Goldman Sachs and Putnam, Porcelli joined what is now BlackRock 10 years ago. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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