Speaker Biography - Deborah Fuhr

Managing Director
Global Head of ETF Research and Implementation Strategy
BlackRock (London)

Under Ms Fuhr's guidance, BlackRock's Global ETF Research and Implementation Strategy team is responsible for advising clients on the implementation of asset allocation strategies using Exchange Trading Funds (ETFs), producing analysis and guidebooks on the global ETF industry. In addition, the team will provide comprehensive research reports to BlackRock's wide range of institutional and intermediary-based clients concerning developing asset allocation strategies using ETFs.

Ms Fuhr is based in BlackRock's London office. However, she spends a significant portion of her time working with BlackRock's extensive client base in Europe and North America, as well as in BlackRock's rapidly developing markets such as Australasia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Prior to joining BlackRock in September 2008 Ms Fuhr spent the past 11 years working at Morgan Stanley. She was a Managing Director and head of the Investment Strategies Group at Morgan Stanley based in London. The unit advised institutional investors globally and wrote on the implementation and strategy on the use of Delta products - including Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) on equity, fixed income and commodity indices globally, OPALS (Optimised Portfolios As Listed Securities), certificates, swaps, futures, out-performance trades, securities lending and yield enhancement trades.

The group published four comprehensive quarterly reports: 1) ETF Global Industry Review, 2) ETF short interest, 3) ETF options and futures and 4) ETF Global Tracking Monitor and advised clients on the implementation of asset allocation with Delta 1 products.

For the past four years, the group has been ranked first for Exchange Traded Fund Research by investors in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas in a global survey conducted by ExchangeTradedFunds.com. For the past three years, Deborah has in the same survey won the award for the Greatest Overall Contribution to the development of the Global ETF industry. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, Ms Fuhr was named as one of the Top 100 women in Finance, a distinguished list of the most influential women in European Finance, by Financial News.

She is on the International Advisory Committee (IAC) Egyptian Stock Exchange and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Indexes.

She has an MBA from the JL Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and Bachelor of Science from the University of Connecticut.