BlackRock's New Leadership in Index Investing: How Samara Cohen is Reshaping Stewardship and Market Access

When BlackRock announced Samara Cohen as Chief Investment Officer of ETFs and Index Investments in January, few outside the institutional finance world noticed. Yet this appointment signals something profound about how the world’s largest ETF and index product manager views its responsibilities in an era of democratized market access.

Cohen’s journey at BlackRock spans nearly three decades, starting in 1993 when the firm was still a young venture founded by former Wall Street analysts with a radical mission: bringing better information directly to investors. Her appointment marks the first time BlackRock has created a dedicated executive position accountable specifically for investment performance across its entire ETF and index book—a recognition that passive investing is anything but passive.

Stewardship as Core Competitive Advantage

The challenge facing index providers today is fundamentally one of stewardship. When a firm like BlackRock holds meaningful positions in virtually every publicly traded company globally—and has no intention of selling—the relationship between asset manager and portfolio company transforms entirely.

Cohen’s philosophy on this question evolved through real-world encounters. In 2017, when the NYSE president invited her to speak with investor relations professionals about engaging with index asset managers, a crucial insight emerged: these professionals didn’t know how to engage with index providers because they’d never needed to before. The answer wasn’t complex but represented a paradigm shift. Engagement wouldn’t happen through individual portfolio managers—it would happen through BlackRock’s stewardship principles, applied systematically across every holding.

This approach reframes voting from a enforcement mechanism into a source of long-term value creation. Rather than using votes as the “end of the line” after engagement fails, BlackRock’s philosophy prioritizes early conversations with companies about what matters most, using governance factors as primary engagement drivers. The firm subsequently hired a dedicated head of investment stewardship to operationalize what’s been termed “stewardship alpha”—the measurable return generated through thoughtful engagement and voting practices.

Solving the Passthrough Voting Problem

One of the most complex issues Cohen is tackling involves voting rights passthrough. For index equity assets under management, BlackRock now enables clients to vote their own shares on 40% of holdings—a substantial recent achievement that required significant technology investment.

Yet structural barriers remain, particularly with ETFs. Unlike institutional separately managed accounts where the barrier was purely technological, ETFs face genuine legal constraints. The current regulatory framework under the Investment Company Act of 1940 doesn’t permit straightforward voting passthrough to ETF shareholders. Cohen acknowledges this isn’t an immediate solvable problem, but she’s intentional about first solving what can be solved among institutional accounts to establish both proof of concept and policy momentum.

The underlying strategy is deliberate: by demonstrating that clients want voting participation and by collecting data on actual adoption rates, BlackRock creates the foundation for future regulatory conversations. The goal is establishing a new end state where '40 Act vehicles can pass through votes just as naturally as other institutional vehicles do.

Making Stewardship Accessible at Scale

A persistent criticism of enhanced stewardship initiatives is that they remain confined to institutional investors and specialists willing to dig through detailed engagement PDFs. How does stewardship become meaningful for the next wave of retail participants entering markets through ETFs?

Cohen frames this as fundamentally a problem of information organization and accessibility—territories where BlackRock has distinctive capabilities. Her analogy illuminates the challenge: ETFs themselves were initially a complex market innovation that, through organization and accessibility, became natural to millions of investors. The same principle should apply to stewardship engagement.

Imagine proxy voting information organized on intuitive platforms where individual investors can participate, not as a specialized institutional service but as an integrated feature of market participation. The technology to enable this isn’t beyond reach; the barriers are structural and organizational rather than technical.

This vision connects to Cohen’s broader observation about market democratization. ETFs have introduced 120 million people globally to market ownership. Yet most don’t understand themselves as corporate stakeholders or recognize the implications of their ownership positions. Making that connection transparent and actionable represents the frontier of what index investors should tackle.

Redefining Investment Performance in Index Investing

Cohen’s appointment as CIO prompted a clarifying question: what does “investment performance” even mean for an index book? It’s not outperformance—by definition, index funds track their benchmarks. So what constitutes performance accountability?

The answer encompasses multiple dimensions: ETF market quality, trading volumes and costs, premium/discount behavior relative to net asset value, precise index tracking, and something increasingly critical—the successful delivery of index outcomes even as alternative weighting methodologies proliferate.

The rise of rules-based alternative indexes has created new complexities. These strategies require different rebalancing approaches, often necessitating more frequent trading. This introduces questions about market impact, investability, and trading cost efficiency that become central to performance management. A CIO overseeing this book must think simultaneously about index construction methodology, portfolio management implementation, and systemic market implications.

Market Structure Implications of Index Dominance

The concentration of capital in index vehicles has sparked legitimate questions about market structure, price discovery, and what happens when “everyone indexes.” Cohen’s perspective here is pragmatic rather than dismissive.

She emphasizes that investors should hold their asset managers accountable for market quality metrics. Are ETFs delivering stated tracking performance? Do underlying indexes remain investible given current ownership concentrations? Should products be restructured—through index methodology changes, creation basket adjustments, or other mechanisms—to better serve market health?

These aren’t peripheral questions; they’re central to fiduciary responsibility. Product engineering teams at BlackRock assess these metrics continuously, with a clear mandate: identify structural improvements that enhance both investability and transparency.

Yet Cohen also contextualizes the debate. Post-financial crisis policy deliberately distributed risk-taking across broader investor bases rather than concentrating it among a few large institutions. This democratization has produced healthier market outcomes, even if it complicates risk measurement and aggregation. The trade-off isn’t irrational; it reflects deliberate policy choices about market stability and access.

ESG Integration as Risk Management Framework

When discussing Environmental, Social, and Governance factors, Cohen consistently reframes the conversation from values-driven activism to disciplined risk management. This distinction matters, particularly as ESG has become politically contentious in some regions.

Her journey parallels BlackRock’s historical narrative. Just as the firm spent the 1990s educating investors about embedded risks in mortgage-backed securities through sophisticated data and analysis, today it’s applying similar rigor to climate risk integration. The core insight remains unchanged: complex financial risks require transparent data, clear methodologies, and investor choice.

This is evident in BlackRock’s work on Implied Temperature Rise (ITR) metrics. Every fund in BlackRock’s lineup receives an ITR assessment measuring whether portfolio construction aligns with Paris Climate Accord trajectories. Publishing broader market data—such as MSCI ACWI positioning—makes this educational and empirical rather than prescriptive.

Importantly, Cohen recognizes that investor preferences span a spectrum. Some want minimal ESG exposure, others demand explicit carbon optimization, and many fall somewhere in between. BlackRock’s role isn’t advocating for particular positions but providing choice through measurable, transparent methodologies. Clients decide their objectives; BlackRock’s responsibility is delivering those objectives through disciplined portfolio management.

Retail Market Participation and Information Accessibility

The influx of retail investors—accelerated by commission-free trading, stimulus checks, and pandemic-driven engagement—presents both opportunity and challenge. Cohen’s framing moves beyond broad-brushed “retail investor” categories to recognize the diversity within this population.

Meme stock enthusiasts represent a fundamentally different investor base than ETF buyers accumulating diversified index positions. Yet both groups are first-time market participants gaining visibility into market mechanics, themes, and potential opportunities. This democratization is healthy and important.

The challenge becomes educational: how do you provide meaningful guidance to investors with vastly different risk tolerances, time horizons, and sophistication levels? Cohen’s answer combines traditional financial advisory alongside scaled personalization—comparable to how fitness technology provides coaching at scale.

For younger investors entering markets, transparency remains essential, but so does acknowledging the complexity and potential risk. Not everyone will hire a personal advisor, but distributed access to robo-advisors, broker platforms with strong educational resources, and professional guidance creates pathways for different investor types.

The Next Frontier: Serving 100 Million New Market Participants

Cohen’s vision for her tenure as CIO focuses on enabling the next 100 million investors to participate in markets and build long-term financial wellbeing on their own terms. This requires simultaneously expanding access and transparency while ensuring market structure remains healthy as participation scales.

In the United States specifically, the frontier involves creating transparency that’s genuinely accessible to individual investors. The market has become more sophisticated, offering more choices, but this sophistication can also become confusing for those without professional guidance.

The solution isn’t fewer choices or simpler markets—that would constitute backward progress. Rather, it involves organizing information in consumable ways, helping advisors reach clients with sophisticated tools, and building platforms where participation feels natural rather than intimidating.

Samara Cohen’s appointment signals BlackRock’s recognition that shepherding this transition requires dedicated leadership. It’s not a marginal responsibility but core to how the indexing industry serves its fundamental mission: democratizing market access while maintaining the stewardship and transparency that institutional investors have always demanded.