BlackRock Bolsters Asian Strategy, Product Capability

Editorial Staff

1 December 2024

has appointed Tomoko Ueda (pictured) as Asia-Pacific head of corporate strategy and development, and named Aarti Angara as APAC head of product.

Ueda will partner with business leaders regionally and globally to formulate and execute the firm’s strategy to support clients across APAC. Ueda was most recently senior corporate officer and global head of strategic planning and management information at Nikko Asset Management. And before that, she was MD, equity capital markets at Merrill Lynch Japan Securities, after serving at Morgan Stanley as head of equity capital markets.

Angara will lead platform initiatives on product creation and implementation to provide the offerings which regional and global investors need to achieve their financial goals. Angara most recently served as chief investment officer at Caravel Asset Management in Hong Kong, where she was responsible for fund performance, portfolio management, and asset allocation decisions.

Prior to that, Angara was co-head of Morgan Stanley’s proprietary investment special situations group for non-Japan Asia.

BlackRock, which is the world’s largest asset manager with $8.487 trillion of assets under management, has been pushing into Asia, including mainland China, in recent years. Last September, the US-listed firm raised about $1 billion for the first-ever mutual fund solely run by a foreign firm which is allowed to sell to Chinese individuals.