Blackstone Beefs Up EMEA Private Wealth Operations

Editorial Staff

11 March 2026

, which has been pushing into the private wealth space as a distribution channel, has appointed two senior figures in the space.

After overseeing the buildout of the EMEA private wealth business, Rashmi Madan, a 15-year Blackstone veteran, has been promoted to the newly-created role of global head of portfolio solutions, the US-listed firm said in a statement yesterday.

Simona Maellare will join Blackstone as EMEA head of private wealth, it continued. Maellare was previously global co-head of the alternative capital group for UBS. In total, she has worked in the alternative investment space in EMEA for over 30 years.

Blackstone, along with peers such as Carlyle and KKR, has been developing its private wealth business. It has more than $300 billion in assets under management via the private wealth channel. (It issued financial results for 2025 in early February.) A reason for the push into the private wealth channel has been that traditional institutional buyers of private market funds have become fully allocated, and post-Covid rate hikes hit IPOs and led to some fund exits being delayed – creating a digestion problem. To distribute funds in this climate, firms have increasingly targeted private client investors.

The global head of Blackstone Private Wealth is Joan Solotar. We reported on her comments about the growing use of what are called “evergreen” funds here. This news service has also analysed whether this trend comes with risks in the event of a significant economic shock. (See here and here.)