BlackRock COO says India’s growth is ‘special’ as Jio BlackRock gears up for big push

Robert L Goldstein, the chief operating officer of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset and wealth manager with about $11 trillion of investor funds under management — more than twice India’s current market capitalisation — has been visiting the country multiple times a year since 2010. He has led several India-focused initiatives, most recently BlackRock’s joint venture with Reliance Industries for Jio BlackRock, and is deeply involved in its rollout and expansion.

Goldstein, who was part of the team that developed Aladdin, the portfolio and risk management platform central to BlackRock’s global operations, spoke to TOI on India’s distinctiveness, the country’s market potential, and what the US giant hopes to bring to Indian investors.

India is remarkable both inside and outside the office

Asked what makes India different, Goldstein said: “India is one of those places where when you’re in an office, it’s remarkable that you could be in an office anywhere in the world… But once you walk one foot outside, you know you’re in India.”

He recalled BlackRock’s entry into India in 2010, during the financial crisis, through the acquisition of Helix Financial. Of the 100 staff Helix had then, 80 were based in India. “The people were amazing… but the office they were in was not consistent with BlackRock’s standards,” he said. The team scouted for new premises in Gurugram and leased a facility for 800 staff when they had only 80. Within 18 months, they were out of space, which he said showed India’s ability to scale quickly with credible human capital.

Bullish on India’s role in reshaping the world order

Goldstein said he is “incredibly bullish on India” from a markets, company and Jio BlackRock perspective. He cited the country’s leap in digitisation, bypassing legacy systems, with the phone becoming an identity tool — a trend Jio helped enable.

On infrastructure, he pointed to Mumbai’s sea-link and coastal road as game-changers for traffic. BlackRock now has about 3,000 employees in India and manages roughly $100 billion of client capital in the country. He said global turbulence is a “relative positive” for India, which is increasingly at the centre of the emerging global order.

Through the lens of the BlackRock Investment Institute’s five megatrends — geopolitics, digital disruption and AI, the future of finance, demographic divergences, and the low-carbon transition — he called India’s demographics “extraordinary”, with about 140 million people entering working age over the next 20 years.

Middle-class rise and untapped capital markets

Goldstein said India is likely the world leader in the number of people moving into the mass affluent and middle class, which supports long-term consumer growth. With GDP estimated to grow at 6.5% this year, he said: “People follow growth… the rate of growth here is special.”

But he noted the mutual fund industry’s relatively small size of $800 billion, with less than 10% of wealth in capital markets. Most wealth is in deposits, property and gold. “There is an exceptional opportunity for that capital to be deployed in a much more efficient, productive way… and that is what we aspire to catalyse with Jio BlackRock.”

He said the tariff regime’s impact on India is contained, with less than 5% of GDP from goods exports to the US. Globalisation is shifting towards aligned blocs. The past five years since COVID have redefined the world order in economics, trade, defence and capital flows, yet markets and economies have proved resilient.

On India’s ageing population and healthcare gaps, he said technology, including telemedicine, could play a big role in addressing the challenges, given the country’s size and infrastructure constraints.

Aladdin and data-driven investing

On differentiating Jio BlackRock AMC from rivals, Goldstein said: “In addition to transparent and competitive pricing… one of the benefits… is the use of Aladdin… providing transparency and insights into investments at scale.”

He said BlackRock applies AI to analyse both structured and unstructured data, including social media sentiment and payments, using large language models to create consistent investment strategies. Jio BlackRock AMC will adopt these principles in some of its offerings.

On offerings for India, Goldstein said BlackRock focuses on helping people achieve investment outcomes through whole portfolios, blending Aladdin technology, model portfolios, index funds, ETFs, and systematic investing — managing portfolios using AI rather than human stock-pickers. Most of its global assets are retirement savings: “These are their hopes and dreams… our mission is to help them do that.”