BlackRock Brings Back Kamala Harris Adviser Pyle in Top Role
(Bloomberg) -- BlackRock Inc. is rehiring Mike Pyle, a former senior aide to Kamala Harris and one-time executive at the firm, strengthening the close ties between the world’s largest money manager and Washington.
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Pyle, who has been informally counseling Harris’s presidential campaign on economics, will advise investors on geopolitical and economic risks as a deputy head of a roughly $3.2-trillion group within the $10.6-trillion firm, BlackRock said in a memo to employees on Monday. Pyle, 46, left President Joe Biden’s administration in February, recently serving as deputy national security adviser on international economics and a negotiator at summits of the Group of Seven and Group of 20.
“As we navigate this environment and focus on the tremendous opportunity ahead, Mike brings an unparalleled combination of market, economic and geopolitical experience,” Rich Kushel, head of BlackRock’s portfolio management group, said in the memo. Pyle starts at BlackRock on Sept. 18, and Kushel said the firm’s clients are navigating “an increasingly complex geopolitical and economic landscape.”
Larry Fink’s investment firm has become a hotspot of former and future policymakers — a mantle once held so firmly by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that it was nicknamed “Government Sachs.” For BlackRock, Pyle’s re-hire underscores the asset manager’s rise from a mainly fixed-income and risk analytics firm to a global giant in stock and bond funds, and increasingly, private assets, that is frequently called upon by politicians, regulators and central bankers to help clean up financial crises.
The firm’s scale and views have attracted criticism as well, most notably from Republicans over the last few years, for its outsize influence on environmental and social investing, with some conservative state lawmakers withdrawing billions of dollars in investments from the company as a result.
Pyle was one of a handful of high-profile BlackRock executives that the Democratic Biden-Harris administration brought on after the 2020 election. Brian Deese, the former head of sustainable investing at BlackRock, joined the National Economic Council, while Wally Adeyemo became deputy Treasury secretary. Pyle was tapped to be Harris’s chief economic adviser at the start of the Biden presidency and later worked on US policy for issues including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global energy and trade policy, and competitiveness issues with China.
A former BlackRock executive, Craig Phillips, was a senior counselor at the Treasury Department under President Donald Trump’s administration.
At BlackRock, Pyle will work in the Portfolio Management Group with Kushel and Phil Vasan, a deputy head of the unit. The division oversees actively managed investments in equities, fixed-income and private credit, as well as multi-asset strategies. He will also be a member of the firm’s operating committee.
Between 2014 and 2021, Pyle was a portfolio manager for BlackRock’s global tactical asset allocation team and also global chief investment strategist for BlackRock Investment Institute. He had earlier served for five years in President Barack Obama’s administration, working on international and domestic economic policy for the White House and US Treasury Department.
Over the past few weeks, Pyle has been an outside and informal adviser to the Harris campaign as it shaped its economic policies for the presidential campaign after Biden said he would end his reelection bid, Bloomberg News has reported. A Harris campaign spokesperson declined to comment.
--With assistance from Jennifer Epstein.
(Updates with Harris campaign response in last paragraph.)
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