When doing a lot of public speaking, a background in theater comes in handy.
Samara Epstein Cohen, BlackRock's first chief investment officer of
"Public speaking is a learned skill," Cohen said. To get better at it, she draws on her experience as a stage director to coach herself: "First and foremost, put your notes down, do your homework, and find a way to tell the story in your words and your voice."
Cohen, who also has a bachelor's degree in finance from the Wharton School and an MBA from Harvard Business School, shares this wisdom with the many rising professionals she mentors as a manager and through her role as senior sponsor for BlackRock's Women's Initiatives & Allies Network. She encourages women to embrace challenges and overcome the limits they place on themselves.
Though women often fight for their seats at the table, "I think the person that has done the most to put me in a box has generally been me," Cohen said. "I used to go to meetings thinking I was only qualified to speak to whatever I had expertise in."
Looking back on moments of growth in her career, she sees now that they were from swallowing her fears and embracing challenges.
Over time, she learned that "if you share a point of view that is relevant in a room, that's a risk that can have a really big impact on how people look at you," she said.
Today, Cohen manages $6.6 trillion in assets. Her team of more than 380 professionals advises more than 120 million investors in 67 countries. She holds positions in several committees at BlackRock, including the global diversity, equity and inclusion committee; the investment and trading oversight committee; and the BlackRock Foundation investment committee.
Along with building steps for women and minorities on the corporate ladder, among Cohen's other primary passions is
In 2023, Cohen led the development and design for BlackRock's iShares bitcoin trust, one of the finance industry's first and largest bitcoin exchange-traded products. The platform allows consumers to access the crypto asset more conveniently — for example, from their mobile phones.
Meanwhile, she also helped lead the launch of the firm's iShares LifePath target date ETFs, which has helped 57 million Americans create retirement plans since its inception in October 2023.
Under Cohen's leadership, BlackRock's iShares ETF-trading platform received more than 550 gold and silver medals from Morningstar.
"Even today, data tells us that people are very intimidated about investing in the markets," Cohen said, "but one of the biggest investment mistakes you can make is simply to not invest."
