The Vanguard Group, which is the world’s second-largest money manager, has appointed former BlackRock (BLK) executive Salim Ramji as its new chief executive officer (CEO).
Ramji’s tenure at Vanguard begins in July. It comes after longtime CEO Tim Buckley announced at the start of this year that he planned to step down after leading Vanguard since 2018.
Buckley has worked at Vanguard since 1991, starting as an assistant to founder and investing legend Jack Bogle.
A pioneer of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that currently has nearly $8 trillion U.S. of assets under management, Vanguard is widely regarded as one of the world’s most important financial services firms.
Privately held, Vanguard is also known for its secrecy and keeping details of its inner operations quiet. The company’s ETFs and mutual funds charge some of the lowest fees in the industry.
Under Buckley’s tenure as CEO, Vanguard’s assets under management (AUM) rose more than 80% and the firm expanded overseas, mostly to Europe.
As the new CEO of Vanguard, Ramji will oversee an asset manager second in size only to his former employer BlackRock.
Ramji was at BlackRock for a decade. While there, he led a program that aims to give individual investors more of a say in voting on companies’ policies.
Before BlackRock, Ramji worked at consulting firm McKinsey & Co., where he worked for 16 years and was a senior partner leading the wealth and asset management practices.
Ramji and Buckley have worked together previously on the executive committee of the Investment Company Institute, the industry’s lobby group.
Buckley will leave Vanguard this summer once Ramji starts at the investment firm, said the company in a news release.
