Novick was a founder of BlackRock in 1988 and served as Vice Chairman of the firm before transitioning to a Senior Advisor role in February 2021. From the inception of the firm through 2008, she headed the Global Client Group and oversaw business development, marketing and client service across equity, fixed income, liquidity, alternative investment and real estate products globally, for both institutional and individual investors and their intermediaries worldwide. In 2009, Novick established BlackRock's Global Public Policy Group, to provide a voice for investors, and from 2018 to 2020 she oversaw BlackRock's Investment Stewardship team.
“Corporate governance and corporate culture are critical to the sustainability and long-term value of companies,” Novick said. “Too often, short-sighted decisions result in the negative outcomes that affect customers, employees, and the broader community, and in turn destroy shareholder value. Policymakers and investors are increasingly focusing on these issues,” she added. “I’m excited to work with the Starling team as they enable companies to mitigate these risks proactively through the use of behavioral and data science.”
“Barbara is a renowned leader known to champion effective investment stewardship and excellence in corporate governance,” said Starling Founder and CEO Stephen Scott. “Amidst growing investor interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations, the ‘G’ element gets short shrift – despite the fact that, today, the greatest impairment to firm value regularly flows from the kinds of operational risk governance failures we’ve seen at Volkswagen, Boeing, Vale and Wells Fargo, to name but a few recent examples,” Scott added. “Given the materiality of such risks, we must have a better means of assessing and forecasting them. As we continue to develop such forward-looking metrics and tools that equip boards, management, and supervisors with proactive risk governance capabilities, Barbara’s guidance will be enormously valuable,” Scott concluded. “It is a real privilege to work with Barbara, to the great benefit of our customers and their stakeholders.”
Novick serves on the boards of New York Life, the American Financial Exchange (AFX), the Peterson Institute for International Economics, 100 Women in Finance, the Center for Financial Stability Advisory Board, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, and the Millstein Center for Global Markets and the Corporate Ownership Advisory Board.
On Starling’s advisory team, Novick joins prominent financial sector executives and public officials. Among them are Gary Cohn, Vice Chairman of IBM, former Director of the National Economic Council, and past-President & COO of Goldman Sachs; and Rick Ketchum, former CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), past head of regulation for the NYSE, and a past-President of the NASD and NASDAQ. For more, please see here.