Barry Knapp was named managing director and head of the thematic strategies team within the Americas fixed-income group at BlackRock, according to an internal memo sent to BlackRock employees and obtained by Pensions & Investments.
The position is new. Beginning later this spring, Mr. Knapp will oversee the newly formed team, which will be responsible for identifying scalable sources of alpha to be used by portfolio management teams across the active fixed-income platform. The team will focus increased resources on macro and thematically driven market dislocations.
Mr. Knapp will report to Rick Rieder, managing director, chief investment officer of fundamental fixed income and co-head of Americas fixed income.
Mr. Knapp was managing director and head of U.S. equity portfolio strategy at Barclays Capital. He has not yet been replaced, according to a Barclays spokeswoman.
