Press releases

Vishal Karir Joins Ethos as Chief Investment Officer from BlackRock

Bitcoinist | Mar 16, 2018 | 13:00

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Ethos.io is beyond excited to welcome Vishal Karir as its Chief Investment Officer. He is backed by over 17 years of investment and technology experience at Morgan Stanley and most recently BlackRock, where he had $1.5 billion in assets under his management. Vishal will lead Ethos’ efforts to bring innovative portfolios for the exciting new crypto asset class to the masses, as well as lead the development of our innovative hybrid investing solutions, helping Ethos to continue bridging the gap between digital and traditional finance.

“The paradigms of finance and investing are shifting in favor of individual investors and entrepreneurs – I am thrilled I have a part in expediting the shift,” said Karir of his decision to make the move from BlackRock to Ethos.

Ethos’ mission is to build a financial ecosystem that is open, safe and fair for everybody. The Ethos Universal Wallet allows users to safely and securely store, send and receive a broad range of digital currencies on their mobile device with the same level of sophisticated security often reserved for expensive hardware wallets – available soon as a free app download this Spring. It also gives users the ability to track assets stored elsewhere, giving users a complete digital portfolio management experience in one app, and a host of other features designed to make cryptocurrencies more accessible and foster mass adoption.

While the Universal Wallet is the first step in its mission, Ethos is already hard at work on its project Fiat Gateway – a hybridized investment solution that will make investing in both cryptocurrencies and traditional assets seamless and accessible, integrated with Universal Wallet to empower the user with full custody and control of their digital assets.

Ethos CEO, Shingo Lavine, said:

With the entrance of Vishal, Ethos and eventually our Fiat Gateway project are uniquely positioned within the industry to bring the sophisticated investment tools of the traditional economy to a new digital asset class.

Ethos’ Chief Global Strategist, Stephen Corliss, added:

Today Ethos takes a giant leap forward with the addition of Vishal to the Ethos Family. Vishal’s wealth and breadth of investment knowledge will enable Ethos to deliver institutional quality investment models accessible to all individuals, that up until now, were only accessible by a select few.

The arrival of Karir truly reinforces the Ethos mandate to provide robust, meaningful best-in-class investment advice and financial planning to help unlock the New Economy for everyone.

For more information on the Ethos Ecosystem, please visit https://www.ethos.io/
For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]

About Vishal Karir

Vishal Karir, CFA, is a Portfolio Manager and Quantitative Investment Researcher with over 17 years of investment and technology experience at BlackRock and Morgan Stanley. Vishal managed BlackRock’s Target Allocation funds with $1.5 billion in assets under management. In addition, Vishal was responsible for the development and management of a range of BlackRock model portfolios (ETF based portfolio solutions), including outcome-oriented and total return asset allocation strategies.

These model portfolios were followed by over 15,000 financial advisors in the US. Vishal’s investment research at BlackRock was primarily focused on equity markets. He developed investment signals by applying machine learning algorithms to analyze large volumes of natural language text. Vishal joined BlackRock’s Model Portfolios Solutions group soon after it was formed and was responsible for the design and development of the quantitative analytics platform that has enabled the rapid growth and scalability of the business.

Prior to that, he architected the iShares Business Intelligence platform that powers BlackRock’s ETF research. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2009, Vishal worked in the Prime Brokerage Technology division at Morgan Stanley. Vishal serves on the board of Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a nonprofit social impact organization, that has helped under-served individuals to start and grow more than 15,000 small businesses that bring jobs, character, and sustainable economic health to the local economy.

About Ethos

Ethos is a people-powered cryptocurrency platform. Our mission is to build a financial ecosystem that is open, safe and fair for everybody. We’re harnessing the power of design, technology, and social intelligence to create a breakthrough solution to enable everyone to participate in the New Economy – putting the power back in the hands of the people, where it belongs.

Images courtesy of Ethos