BlackRock Inc., the world's biggest asset manager, hired itslong-time strategic and financial adviser Gary Shedlin as chieffinancial officer to replace Ann Marie Petach, who will move to aclient-oriented role within the firm.

Petach will be a senior managing director at BlackRockSolutions, New York-based BlackRock said yesterday in a statement.Shedlin, 49, a former vice chairman of investment banking at MorganStanley, will join the firm in March and become CFO after itreports its first-quarter earnings in April.

“Gary has an intimate knowledge of BlackRock and knows ourindustry well,” Laurence D. Fink, chief executive officer ofBlackRock, said in the statement. “I am confident that he will leadour finance operations as a partner in driving our business throughour next phase of disciplined growth.”

BlackRock has hired executives such as Philipp Hildebrand, theformer head of the Swiss central bank, to help expand relationshipswith institutional clients overseas, and Linda Robinson, who joinedas head of marketing and communications in 2011 to oversee afive-year branding campaign. Fink also revamped management as fundperformance has trailed, including replacing the group thatoversees investment products with five specialized units in August,the most sweeping overhaul since BlackRock acquired Barclays GlobalInvestors in 2009.

Shedlin will be responsible for BlackRock's corporate financefunctions such as accounting and tax, treasury and risk management.He'll also join BlackRock's global executive committee, which addedeight executives during the reorganization announced in August.

Shedlin joined Morgan Stanley in 2010 from Citigroup Inc., wherehe was chairman of the bank's investment-banking effort forfinancial institutions.

He was part of a team of investment bankers at Morgan Stanleythat last year were charged with assessing the value of thebrokerage jointly owned by Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. The twobanks were in a dispute over the value of the Morgan Stanley SmithBarney business, which ended in an agreement for Morgan Stanley tobuy the rest of the unit in pieces through 2015.

Petach will work with client offerings for public and privatepension funds. She previously was the treasurer at Ford Motor Co.,where she was responsible for pension, banking andrisk-management.

As part of the reorganization in August, BlackRock created twoclient-oriented units that are responsible for distributingproducts to investors, instead of relying on a single global clientgroup. The first one is made up of BlackRock Solutions, the unitthat advises financial institutions and governments onhard-to-value assets, and the institutional group. The secondincludes sales of iShares, BlackRock's exchange-traded fundbusiness, and retail funds.

The company oversaw $3.79 trillion as of Dec. 31.

Bloomberg News

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.