One of Larry Fink's few rumored possible successors atop BlackRock [profile] is passing off one hat while hanging on to another.

San Francisco-based Mark McCombe, senior managing director and of head of the Americas and of BlackRock Alternative Investors, will shift to solely leading the Americas for the publicly traded, New York City-based asset management giant, Trevor Hunnicutt of Reuters reports. The wire service writes that McCombe's change and more were revealed in an internal BlackRock memo sent today.

Other changes revealed in the memo, according to the wire service, include: David Blumer, formerly head of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), being appointed head of the alternative investors division in McCombe's stead; Rachel Lord, head of EMEA iShares, rising to succeed Blumer as head of EMEA for all of BlackRock; and bond ETF executive Stephen Cohen taking Lord's old spot as head of EMEA iShares.

In today's memo Fink, CEO, and Rob Kapito, president, mention the succession issue without pointing to anyone in particular.

"We regularly review, with the Board, leadership and succession planning for all of our businesses and seek to ensure we are developing leaders with broad experience across the entire firm," Fink and Kapito reportedly wrote.

An alumnus of Aberdeen University, McCombe held leadership roles at HSBC (in London and Hong Kong) before joining BlackRock in 2011 as chairman of Asia Pacific. He later led BlackRock's institutional client business globally, in addition to alternatives, and he took over as head of the Americas on January 1. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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