Henry A. Fernandez

Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer

As MSCI’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Henry Fernandez has led the firm for over two decades to its position today as a premier provider of indexes and portfolio construction and risk management tools, as well as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data and research. MSCI is an S&P 500 company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It has revenues of over USD 1.5 billion and a market cap of over USD 25 billion. In 2019, Mr. Fernandez was one of 30 CEOs named in Barron’s list of the World’s Best CEOs.

Headquartered in New York, and with offices in more than 30 cities across more than 20 countries, MSCI is a central connecting point for the global investment industry. MSCI’s clients are the world’s largest investors, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, mutual funds, ETF providers, hedge funds, and banks. The firm has pursued a successful growth strategy, both organically and through the acquisition of market-leading brands such as Barra and RiskMetrics, and by developing an integrated set of industry-standard offerings to meet the rapidly-changing needs of sophisticated global investors.

Prior to becoming CEO, Mr. Fernandez was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he worked in emerging markets business strategy, equity derivatives sales and trading, mergers and acquisitions, mortgage-backed securities and corporate finance. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he was President of private equity firm HispaniMedia, Inc. He also founded Ferco Partners, Inc., a private equity investment firm in Mexico and from 1976 to 1979 he was a diplomat in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, DC.

Mr. Fernandez serves on the boards of directors/trustees at Stanford University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the Hoover Institution, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Foreign Policy Association, and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. Previously, he served on the boards of trustees at Georgetown University, The Trinity School, The Browning School, MexDer (Mexican Derivatives Exchange) and was Chair of the Advisory Council at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Mr. Fernandez holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Georgetown University, an MBA from Stanford University, and pursued doctoral studies in Economics at Princeton University. He was born in Mexico and grew up in Nicaragua. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.