After 33 years as a senior executive in asset management at BlackRock, including responsibility for the ETF and Index Investment business, I have made a transition to board service in the nonprofit and financial sectors. Perhaps financial services seems an unlikely career for someone whose earliest ambitions all involved music—music education, oboe performance and academic studies in historical musicology and ethnomusicology—and yet, they have come to combine beautifully at this point in my life.

In 2024, I was honored to accept the role of Chair of the Board for the national League of American Orchestras membership organization and also serve on the board of the Monterey Symphony. Through this non-profit work, I seek to inspire current and future leaders of the orchestral field in pursuit of a resilient future for the art form. As an OUT LGBT executive with strong interest in developing the human capital of organizations, I continue to encourage new levels of diversity and inclusion in asset management and the classical music non-profit sphere.

As an oboist, I have sounded the “A“ many times to help orchestras tune before a concert. Today, I advocate through non-profit board work for greater inclusion and transformative leadership in classical music organizations.  I hope that by playing this current note I inspire those of us who understand the power of classical music to touch lives and connect communities to play in tune together, collaborating harmoniously to imagine the future of this art form in an ever-changing world.

Read more about Alan’s biography or check his professional LinkedIn page.