According to Business Insider, BlackRock named Kirsty Craig as one of five new Tech Fellows on December 16, a high distinction held by only about two dozen of the firm’s thousands of engineers. Craig, the head of research, data, and AI strategy for portfolio management tech, is the only woman and the only fellow working outside the core Aladdin platform this year. She was recognized for her 15-year role as a “translator” between portfolio managers and engineers, and for her work on “Asimov,” an agentic AI platform unveiled in June that acts as a virtual investment analyst for BlackRock’s fundamental equity business. Craig leads a team of about 60 professionals and found out about the honor at the start of December. She is also preparing for her partner to give birth in early January, with a due date around January 6.
The real power of translation
Here’s the thing about AI in finance: everyone’s got the models. The real differentiator isn’t the algorithm; it’s getting the people who understand the money to actually use it. That’s where Craig’s “translator” role is so critical. She basically sits in the no-man’s-land between the quants who build the systems and the portfolio managers who have to trust them with billions. And as she said, those two groups often talk past each other. Building that bridge of trust is everything. It’s a soft skill that’s arguably harder to find than a brilliant data scientist, and it’s probably the secret sauce that got her the fellowship as much as any technical achievement.
Diversity beyond the numbers
Craig’s fellowship is notable because she’s the only woman in this year’s cohort, bringing the total number of female Tech Fellows at BlackRock to five out of 24. The firm’s global talent and culture page shows women make up 43.8% of the workforce and 33.1% of senior leadership. But numbers only tell part of the story. Craig points to her involvement in internal resource groups as key to developing the collaborative, cross-divisional skills that define her work. It’s a reminder that diversity in expertise and approach—like having a fellow from outside the monolithic Aladdin ecosystem—is just as important as demographic diversity. Her hope to help junior female technologists “lean in” with this title is a tangible outcome that matters more than a stat.
The AI hype meets Wall Street reality
So they’ve got Asimov, an “agentic AI platform.” Sounds impressive, right? It leverages AI to automate workflows and research, compressing months-long processes. But let’s be a little skeptical. The entire financial industry is in a mad dash to slap “AI” on everything, and the real test isn’t the demo day, it’s the sustained alpha over years. Craig’s team is now looking to expand this agentic research into fixed income and macro investing. That’s a whole different ballgame with more complex, less standardized data. The challenge won’t be building the AI; it’ll be the translation work all over again—getting skeptical fixed-income managers to believe in the output. That’s the endless, unglamorous work that actually moves the needle.
What’s next for a fellow?
Now Craig has the title. What changes? She says she’s embedded in the firm’s efforts to stay ahead technologically. In a place like BlackRock, a fellowship like this isn’t just a pat on the back—it’s a platform and a mandate. It gives her more clout to push strategies and, crucially, to secure resources for her team’s ambitious plans. But it also comes with a spotlight. The pressure to deliver measurable “dial movers,” as she calls them, just increased. And she’s doing it all while heading into one of life’s biggest changes with a new baby on the way. Talk about a portfolio of high-stakes projects. If she can successfully translate between Wall Street and Silicon Valley, maybe balancing a fellowship and parenthood will seem straightforward.
