Laurence D. Fink

"We now at BlackRock make the diversity of every business a component of the leaders comp. Were people okay with that? They had no choice. But we are seeing real behavior change. It works. Okay? You get what you insist. Sometimes you just got to be blunt."

"Let's be clear. We've made immigration more difficult in this country. Really? Yeah. I'm not shocked. Is that good or bad? It's horrible. Well, I'm a globalist, so."

"And we have programs now of elevation of more women, more people of color into the jobs that have the highest potential to be the highest compensation levels at the firm. And it's been quite successful already. And much of it has to do with transparency. Once again, if you start using the Sasbi statistics, it's pretty clear you're not accomplishing it. And through that transparency you can't hide. And through that process we are now elevating it. So we are systematically grading leaders about their nurturing and development of people of color, of women."

[corporate] behaviors are gonna have to change and this is one thing we’re asking companies. You have to force behaviors, and at BlackRock we are forcing behaviors. . . . What we’re doing internally is if you don’t achieve these levels of impact, your compensation could be impacted. You have to force behaviors. If you don’t force behaviors, whether it’s gender or race or just any way you want to say the composition of your team, you’re going to be impacted. . . . We’re gonna have to force change.

"I mean, it shocks to me, first of all, when we talk about diversity, one thing that is under spoken, it's very clear, I think more and more companies are focusing on gender diversity still not enough. Everybody's focusing on ethnic diversity. What is not being discussed enough because it's intangible, and it's harder to if you don't get diversity of mind, you're probably in as much trouble as any component of diversity."