YouSaid · the spoken record

Raffaele Savi

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54

first

2025-08-12

most recent

2025-08-12

sittings or episodes

1

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podcast

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1. “Yes. So I left Italy when I was 35, which is a little late. I like to say that sort of I do everything 10 years after the best practice. A lot of people leave Italy to study and then they come back after 10 years in the industry to enjoy. The quality of life, and I did a little bit the opposite. I worked at the first 10 years of my career in Italy, and then I moved. It was a personal set of circumstances I met this woman, she's my wife, she's American, I was in love, and she moved to London. And so I started cold calling a number of companies and not even in my wildest dream. I call headhunters. I call companies. And then I got this offer from BGI and I couldn't believe it because that's for people that are in my field. Grinold and Khan is the book that we all studied on. And so the idea that I could join that firm.”

   2025-08-12 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Searching for Signals: BlackRock’s Raffaele Savi on the Future of Systematic Investing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

2. “And then in 2006, you joined Barclays Global Investors or PGI, which merged with BlackRock in 2009. What motivated you to move to BGI? And then later, you stayed at BlackRock post the merger. Tell us more about your thought process in both of those inflection points.”

   2025-08-12 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Searching for Signals: BlackRock’s Raffaele Savi on the Future of Systematic Investing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

3. “Yes, it was a little bit of a mix of Destiny and intent. I'm an electrical engineer by training. And actually, I was interested. I was doing my dissertation in remote sensing. And then a set of circumstances, I ended up taking a class on derivatives. And this was sort of the early 90s, and I fell in love with finance. And so I decided to do my dissertation on the math of derivatives. There was some coding involved. Back then, that was enough to sort of being considered a quant. Today is much harder for young people entering the field now, I feel. And then I ended up working in the sort of nascent investment management firm in Italy. And sort of we were all young, and it was another element of luck. They say that you want to be starting your career in a new field sometimes to have. Had the best experience, and that's what happened to me.”

   2025-08-12 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Searching for Signals: BlackRock’s Raffaele Savi on the Future of Systematic Investing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

4. “Thank you. I might clarify. I have been with the team for 20 years, so half of this full yet, but the team itself has been serving clients for 40 years, and thank you for having me here.”

   2025-08-12 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Searching for Signals: BlackRock’s Raffaele Savi on the Future of Systematic Investing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT