With experience spanning over two decades including working with the top decile private equity and venture managers, playing a pivotal role in BlackRock’s massive growth (now recognized as the world’s largest asset manager) from its inception to  post-IPO, and being one of the first female executives on the equity, fixed income, commodity and forex trading floors of major investment banks such as Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs,  Sandra’s diverse skill set was the perfect background to found a market intelligence firm and build her own family office in the last ten years.  As Co-CIO along with her husband, Sandra has been investing in numerous venture funds as well as seed to growth equity stage companies in three main areas:  Blockchain, Enterprise SaaS and Artificial Intelligence (especially at the intersection of healthcare).  In addition, Sandra recently became a Venture Partner at Hutt Capital, a Blockchain Venture Capital Fund of Funds and Direct Investment firm that provides exposure to the top blockchain & crypto startups globally via a single commitment. 

 

Prior, Sandra was a Director and Senior Distribution Banker in Merrill Lynch’s Private Equity Funds Group within the firm’s Investment Banking Division.  Before that, Sandra worked with the original eight founders of BlackRock while it was still under the Blackstone name to distribute their very first closed-end bond fund traded on the equity stock exchange; she then joined them full time in building BlackRock’s brand, diversifying its clientele, and winning over $9 billion in new assets under management catapulting the firm to IPO.  

 

Prior to joining BlackRock, Sandra was a Derivatives Sales Trader in London and New York for Goldman Sachs, where she was responsible for the creation and marketing of commodity and foreign currency linked products.  Sandra began her career at Merrill Lynch in the Private Resources Group where she structured private placement financings as well as spearheaded the firm’s strategic Entrepreneur of the Year sponsorship interest, built relationships with emerging blue-chip companies and took them public.  She later became one of the first women to join the firm’s Client Strategies Group on Merrill’s Fixed Income Trading Floor. 

 

Sandra has her MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth and a Bachelor of Science from St. Peter’s College where she graduated Valedictorian, summa cum laude in cursu honorum, with a double major in Accounting and Marketing and minor in Economics.  

 

Sandra oversees her own family foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to improving quality of life with a special focus on education and healthcare.  Sandra also serves on several advisory boards, is a frequent speaker at family office gatherings in regards to blockchain/crypto and impact investing, an associate with The Milken Foundation/Faster Cures, a fellow of The Aspen Institute, and one of the earliest supporters of both The Robin Hood Foundation and TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).