BlackRock has appointed Dixit Joshi as Managing Director, Middle East Technology and Advisory Solutions, and Digital Assets. Based in Dubai, the role brings one of European banking's better-known finance chiefs onto the buy side.
Joshi will focus on the expansion of BlackRock's Middle East platform across capital markets and technology, including the firm's Aladdin risk and portfolio management system, and on advancing its digital assets strategy in the region. He is understood to report to Charles Hatami, BlackRock's Global Head of the Financial and Strategic Investors Group and Head of the Middle East.
The mandate reflects where BlackRock has been concentrating its regional effort. The firm secured regulatory approvals and commercial licences in Kuwait through the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority in September 2025, naming Ali Al-Qadi to lead the Kuwait office alongside his Qatar coverage, and it continues to build in Abu Dhabi. Its Middle East client base sits largely with the sovereign and quasi-sovereign institutions covered by Hatami's Financial and Strategic Investors Group, a client set deploying at record pace: GCC sovereign wealth funds committed USD 53.9bn across 108 transactions in the first half of 2026, a record by value.
Joshi began his career at Credit Suisse in London in 1995. He left for Barclays in 2003 as head of equity derivatives, going on to run equities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and departed after the bank acquired Lehman Brothers' investment banking business. He joined Deutsche Bank in 2011, initially sent to Singapore to rebuild its Asia-Pacific equities franchise, and held a series of senior investment banking roles overseeing prime broking, institutional debt, listed derivatives and clearing before being appointed Group Treasurer in 2017. He returned to Credit Suisse as Chief Financial Officer in October 2022, a tenure that spanned the bank's final months and its emergency acquisition by UBS, and left when that transaction completed in June 2023.
Technology and digital assets have moved up the regional agenda in parallel. Dubai ranked first globally for fintech in the latest Global Financial Centres Index, published this month, with DIFC closing the first half of 2026 with 10,000 active firms, up 30% year on year. Regional institutions have begun creating leadership roles to match, among them Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank's Chief AI Officer appointment in August and Shuaa Capital's tokenisation and distribution mandate the same month.
Joshi announced the move on LinkedIn. BlackRock had not issued a statement at the time of writing.
