JOSEPH SAMUEL: My name is Joseph Samuel. I’m a director at BlackRock. I run one of the development teams in the Aladdin Product Group. Aladdin supports every single part of the asset management process. It is a collection of systems and software that are all hooked together that support portfolio managers, traders, analysts, operations folks to perform the front to back actions of an asset manager.
When I came for the interview, the thing that convinced me to join was the people that I met. I thought I could learn something from everybody that I spoke to, which is what really made me think, yeah, I’m ready for a change. You can see around. It’s an open space. It’s very collaborative now. There’s fewer places for closed meeting rooms and a lot more open spaces.
We do a lot of social activities down here. So we’ve got an Xbox. We’ve got a Wii U. We’ve got board games. People are free to just come and play and take a break whenever they want.
One of the big things that’s just happened, actually, is the BlackRock Hackathon. The Hackathon is an innovation competition, where people have to solve any problem that they want across the business. And that can range from a new way to book rooms to a new algorithm for portfolio managers. You know, the problems have no limit.
What people get from this is they get to work on new ideas with new people. There’s a good sense of community because the day job stops during the competition, just so everyone can get involved. And they get exposure to really senior judges across the company as well.
I’m proud to work at BlackRock because I really feel like the company is trying to make a difference and that we are making a difference, both in the culture inside the firm with technology and also what we give to our clients.
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