Michelle Edkins

Managing Director, Global Head of Investment Stewardship, BlackRock

Michelle Edkins is a Managing Director at BlackRock and Global Head of its Investment Stewardship team of over 40 specialists internationally.  Michelle is responsible for the team’s engagement and proxy voting activities to promote the governance and business practices aligned with long-term value creation by the companies in which BlackRock invests on behalf of clients.  She also serves on the firm’s Global Operating and Government Relations Steering Committees.  An active participant in the public corporate governance debate, she was named in the NACD Directorship 100 Governance Professionals list the past seven years.  She is also a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s First Movers program and a former Chair of the Board of Governors of the International Corporate Governance Network.  She currently serves on a number of industry initiatives to enhance governance and sustainable business practices including the US chapter of the 30% Club, a market initiative to increase the number of women on boards and in senior management, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Investor Advisory Group and the CECP’s Strategic Investor Initiative.  An economist by training, Michelle has also worked in the UK in a number of investment stewardship-related roles and in government roles in her native New Zealand.