Sue Wagner ’82 was just 26 when she took a life-changing risk: She left a stable Wall Street job as a vice president at major investment bank Lehman Brothers to co-found BlackRock. It’s now the largest investment management firm in the world. But back in 1988, it was far from a sure bet. Wagner and her co-founders, she remembers, “absolutely understood we were all leaving well-established jobs on Wall Street. We had an idea, [and] it made sense for a host of reasons, but there were no guarantees.”
For Wagner, deciding to take the risk came down to one simple fact: “I didn’t want to look over my shoulder and say, ‘What if?’”
Wagner grew up in a family that believed deeply in education and achievement. “It was very explicit that expectations were very high,” she says. Wellesley opened her up to new possibilities academically and in the community. “What Wellesley really does,” she says, “is it nourishes the foundational educational principles that fuel curiosity.”
Wellesley, she says, gave her the “encouragement to ask the questions and dig deeper, to accept that you’re not going to be good at everything and you’re not going to be the smartest person in the room, and that’s OK. … You can work with others to solve problems and pursue ideas.”
Wagner majored in economics and English—poetry was a favorite. She still has the paperback of T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” she used in class with all her notes in it. “In poetry, in Shakespeare’s plays, every word was thought about and carefully chosen. … I loved that economy of language,” she says. After graduating, she earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, but she says her English major at Wellesley, as well as her liberal arts education more broadly, gave her critical-thinking and communication skills she has applied throughout her life and career.
Wagner’s innovation and creativity helped drive BlackRock’s success for decades. The firm was a pioneer in risk management systems, leveraging technology to support the investment process and create an investment edge. The company, she says, set out to help its clients understand and manage risk while pursuing their investment objectives, and it has never been afraid to be dynamic and transform itself. “The world is not static, so how can you stay static?” she asks. “Your clients’ needs are not the same as they were. How are you going to keep serving them well without being willing to adapt and evolve?” Change can mean taking risks—something she and BlackRock encouraged. “The other side of risk is opportunity,” she says.
And opportunity it was. Now, BlackRock manages more than $13 trillion in assets. Wagner worked at the company for nearly 25 years, serving as vice chairman from 2006 to 2012 and as a member of the Global Executive Committee and Operating Committee. During her tenure, she also served as chief operating officer and head of corporate strategy and corporate development, and she was the global executive sponsor of BlackRock’s Women’s Initiative Network. She has been named one of Fortune magazine’s 50 most powerful women in business, and she has appeared on similar lists published by the Financial Times and Crain’s New York.
In 2012, Wagner stepped down as vice chairman of BlackRock and joined the company’s board of directors, a position she still holds. She also serves on the boards of companies including Apple (becoming its second woman director in 2014), Samsara, and Color Health, and she is a trustee emerita of Wellesley College. As she entered this phase of her career, she says she thought deeply about what she would do with the newly opened space in her life. “What am I going to wake up and think about?” she asked herself.
Having worked for decades in finance and mentored generations of women, she says she “came to believe very strongly that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.” In 2015, Wagner, along with trustee emerita Lulu Chow Wang ’66 and the College’s administration, embarked on a mission to reimagine career education at the College—which began with a lot of discussion and led to a contribution of the largest gift ever awarded to Wellesley.
Wagner started “really thinking blue sky,” she says. “If you could do anything, how would you empower the administration to serve students better so Wellesley students have the opportunities they desire, that they deserve?” Alongside the College, they launched a complete restructuring of career education that resulted in a model that follows students holistically through all four years on campus and then as alumnae, to help them learn where their interests lie and to connect them to the right opportunities to realize their full potential.
Wagner also has a vision for the College beyond its students and alumnae. “It was not just about supporting Wellesley women,” she says, “but how do we use Wellesley’s position, stature, and voice to help make sure there’s opportunity for all women?” The Susan L. Wagner ’82 Centers for Wellesley in the World, launched in 2024, helps answer that question. The initiative brings together three key public-facing entities: the Wellesley Centers for Women, the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs, and the Hillary Rodham Clinton Center for Citizenship, Leadership, and Democracy.
“This new structure will support innovative educational programs and research opportunities for students and sustain a vibrant research community on campus that cuts across departments and disciplines,” President Paula A. Johnson said in announcing the centers last year. “At the same time, it will provide enhanced opportunities for faculty and the centers’ researchers to contribute powerfully to debate in the public square, both in the U.S. and globally.”
Wagner says, “[I] thought of it as, ‘How can we drive change at home, and how can we also drive systemic change on behalf of women everywhere?’”
Wagner will be the first to say her life has not always followed a straight path or perfect plan. But, as she told Wellesley’s class of 2014 as their commencement speaker, that’s never allowed her to get stuck. “Know what’s important to you, be open to the world, and be flexible in your goals,” she said. “Have goals, but don’t be wed to a plan. The future will be filled with paths you cannot see today, so be open, work hard, embrace your paranoia, take risks that will cause you to stretch and grow. Have confidence in your ability to figure it out.”
