Blackstone taps Barclays for new CTO

John Stecher joins the investment giant as it continues to focus on technology and innovation as a 'strategic priority.'

Blackstone has hired John Stecher as its new chief technology officer. The private equity giant, which has the industry’s most assets under management at $571 billion, has brought on Stecher to advance its technology organization and provide tech-related advice to its investing teams and portfolio companies.

Stecher will be taking the reins from Bill Murphy, Blackstone’s CTO of eight years, who will remain at the firm as a senior advisor and will continue to serve on the boards of multiple portfolio companies. Murphy is said to have built Blackstone’s in-house tech department – known as Innovations – from the ground up. Before Blackstone, he was a founding member of Capital IQ, now owned by Standard & Poor’s.

Stecher will oversee the 200-plus Innovations team and be responsible for, among other things, advising portfolio companies and investors on tech implementation and strategy, as well as coming up with new ways to manage the investment process and portfolio companies themselves from a tech perspective.

He starts the new position on February 24.

“Technology and innovation is a strategic priority for the firm. Blackstone has made terrific progress over the past decade, under Bill’s leadership, in building and implementing technology solutions,” said Blackstone CFO Michael Chae in a press release. “John Stecher is a world-class technologist and inspiring leader who will help us build on this success and to harness the power of technology across our firm and portfolio.”

Stecher joins Blackstone from his role as group chief technology officer and group chief innovation officer at Barclays, where he was responsible for setting up an “innovation strategy.” Before that, he held various senior positions across technology and engineering at Goldman Sachs, and a role at IBM, where he was an IBM Master Inventor.

“Blackstone has invested significantly in technology to better run its business and serve investors while leveraging that expertise to inform its investing teams,” said Stecher in the press release. “The scale and breadth of the platform offers a unique opportunity.”

Additional material reported by Connor Hussey