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| Arielle Gross Samuels |
Arielle Gross Samuels, global head of environmental, social and governance activity at Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, is joining Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager and commercial real estate owner.
In September, she will take the job as global head of marketing on the corporate affairs team of a company that has $941B in assets under management.
At Meta, Samuels handled ESG strategy, positioning, social good, equality and sustainability.
She is moving to Blackstone due to its commitment to decarbonization, diversity and governance, according to her LinkedIn post.
Blackstone has set “ambitious goals to generate value across their portfolio—including a 15% aggregate reduction in carbon emissions across all new investments where they control energy usage globally in the first three years of ownership, and 1/3 board diversity targets for new control investments,” wrote Samuels.
She also called Blackstone a strong backer of female-founded companies.
After speaking with Blackstone co-founder/CEO Stephen Schwarzman, president/COO Jon Gray and global head of corporate affairs Christine Anderson, Samuels became impressed with the company’s “incredible culture,” dedication to brand and marketing and the quality of the investment process.
Blackstone has long been a target of Democratic Senators such as Elizabeth Warren.
She has accused Blackstone of financing the destruction of the Amazon rainforest due to its investments in a Brazilian infrastructure company and contributing to the US housing crisis.
Samuels also was Facebook’s business lead for global marketing and creative, global program manager for its Creative Shop and manager of product operations.
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