BlackRock appoints Aramco CEO as board director

Reuters/Hamad I Mohammed

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has named Amin Nasser, president and CEO of Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), as an independent director.

The appointment reflects the importance of the Middle East to the firm’s long-term strategy, it said in a statement.

Nasser oversaw the successful public listing of the Saudi oil company in 2019, the largest IPO in history. 

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He joined Aramco in 1982 as a petroleum engineer and later held vice president and executive roles in its upstream business. Nasser has held a board seat since 2010. 

He is leading Aramco’s efforts to produce cleaner energy and products through investments in new technologies such as crude oil-to-chemicals processes and renewable energy applications. 

Laurence D. Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, said: “Amin’s distinguished career at Aramco, spanning more than four decades, gives him a unique perspective on many of the key issues facing our firm and our clients.”

BlackRock now has 17 board members, of which 15 are independent and five are women. One-third of BlackRock’s directors have been newly elected over the past five years.

The US-based investment firm established a wholy-owned Saudi subsidiary in 2018, opened an office in Riyadh in 2019 and in February 2022 received approval from the market regulator to start managing investments and operating funds in the kingdom.

Its other offices in the Middle East and Africa are in Dubai, Tel Aviv and Cape Town.

“We’re not only just seeing clients in the old geographic footprint, we’re seeing new clients expanding geographically. More and more client flows now in Europe, much more in the Middle East,” Fink earlier said.