Samara Cohen, Senior Managing Director, is BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments and a member of the firm’s Global Executive Committee (GEC).
As CIO for ETF and Index Investments, Samara leads the teams delivering the market quality and investment integrity of roughly $6.6 trillion of BlackRock’s index funds and iShares ETFs. Encompassing portfolio managers, risk managers, platform architects, and market structure developers, her teams continuously pursue better ways for clients to access expanding investment opportunities and seek to lead in the modernization of the indexing industry and ETF markets.
Samara is a member of the GEC Investment Subcommittee and the GEC Talent Subcommittee. She is also the GEC sponsor for BlackRock’s Women’s Initiative & Allies Network (WIN) and a member of the Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee.
Prior to rejoining BlackRock in 2015, Samara was a Managing Director in the Securities Division of Goldman Sachs, where she built and led the Global Market Transition team to develop and deliver solutions to clients in the evolving market structure and regulatory environment following the 2008 global financial crisis. Samara first joined BlackRock in 1993 as an analyst in the Institutional Client Business.
Samara has been recognized for her leadership in the financial services industry. In 2023, she was named one of American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Finance and she has been honored as one of Barron’s Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance in 2022, 2023, and 2024. She is a member of the Board of the Directors for the Securities Industry Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), and a member of the Board of the BlackRock Foundation.
Samara is passionate about the impact teachers have on students and communities. She is an engaged alumna of the Brearley School and served on its Board of Trustees from 2008-2015. Currently, she serves on the Board of Advisors for the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
She earned a BS Econ in Finance from the Wharton School and a BA in Theatre Arts from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania. She earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
