Private equity firm Warburg Pincus has appointed Lee Kranefuss as an executive-in-residence (EIR).
Kranefuss (pictured) will work to help Warburg Pincus identify and evaluate investment opportunities in the areas of exchange-traded funds, index investing and asset management, particularly in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Kranefuss was the architect and global chief executive officer of iShares, part of Barclays Global Investors (BGI), where he built the largest global ETF platform. He oversaw the global expansion of iShares from launch in 2000 to over USD600bn in assets in 2010.
While at BGI, Kranefuss was a member of the executive committee, and – in addition to running iShares – managed all of BGI’s institutional indexing, money market, asset allocation, portfolio restructuring, securities lending and private equity businesses, which comprised total assets of more than USD1.5trn.
Subsequent to the acquisition of BGI by BlackRock, Kranefuss worked on post-merger integration and transition management before departing BlackRock in 2010.
Kranefuss says: “I am pleased to join Warburg Pincus, a firm with a global track record and experience backing world-class management teams in the financial services sector. ETFs and passive investing are powerful investment tools globally, and continue to see long-term inflows. However this is a time of flux and opportunity in the ETF industry. The time is ripe to create a large-scale, global, and independent ETF provider that will provide the truly attractive and innovative product – and the support behind it – that ETF investors demand.”
Cary J Davis, managing director at Warburg Pincus, adds: “As one of the true leaders of the global ETF industry, Lee brings years of invaluable knowledge and experience and we are pleased to welcome him to Warburg Pincus as an EIR.”
