MATT SILVA: My name is Matt Silva. I’m a portfolio manager at BlackRock in the EII group. So I manage 25 exchange traded funds, all with the investment goal to track an index. So I took a very nontraditional route to BlackRock. I started out at West Point, and then afterwards graduated with a systems engineering degree, and did five years’ active duty. I ended up getting out as a captain, going to grad school, and starting at a small investment firm for a few years before I made the jump into BlackRock.
BlackRock is developing a very inclusive culture from around the globe. To build an innovative team, you have to have a diverse workforce. As a leader in the army for five years, there’s things that I’ve learned and done that have worked well for me in that setting that can carry over to something that happens at BlackRock. I became who I am because of my background and what I was. And I think I definitely provide a unique viewpoint, I would say.
Our business is always changing. You know, the markets are changing, our clients’ needs are changing. Our culture is designed to come up with innovative solutions to help accommodate these changes. It’s been the bedrock of BlackRock’s growth. We embrace change and we’ll look for opportunities. We’re not afraid to change.
Last year we had to replace all the trade generation software and upgrade to a newer system that BlackRock came out with. Our team really wanted to tailor what was happening to our process and what we want to do. It was a long project. But we all got to have good input. And it was kind of neat that we kind of tackled it as a group. I think we came up with a pretty good solution.