Henry A. Fernandez

Henry Fernandez is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MSCI Inc., a premier provider of indexes and portfolio-construction and risk-management tools, as well as climate and sustainability data and research. He became Head of the MSCI business in 1996 and led the company through its IPO in 2007.

In 2019 and 2021, Henry was one of 30 executives named in the Barron’s list of the World’s Best CEOs.

MSCI is a New York Stock Exchange–listed S&P 500 company with revenues of over $2.7 billion and a market cap of over $40 billion. Headquartered in New York City, with more than 6,000 employees in more than 25 countries, and with clients in more than 100 countries, it is a central connecting point for the global investment industry. Its clients are the world’s largest investors, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, asset managers, mutual funds, ETF providers, hedge funds, and banks.

Prior to becoming CEO of MSCI, Henry 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. Before Morgan Stanley, he was President of the private-equity firm HispaniMedia, Inc., and founded Ferco Partners, Inc., a private-equity investment firm in Mexico. He was also a diplomat at the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Henry currently serves on the boards of directors/trustees of Royalty Pharma plc, Stanford University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, KAUST Investment Management Company, the Hoover Institution, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Foreign Policy Association, and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. In addition, he is a member of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero Principals Group, and an emeritus member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) Advisory Council.

He previously served on the boards of trustees at Georgetown University, the Trinity School, the Browning School, and MexDer (Mexican Derivatives Exchange).

Henry received a BA in economics from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Stanford GSB, and he pursued doctoral studies in economics at Princeton University. He was born in Mexico and grew up in Nicaragua, and now lives in New York City with his wife. They have three children.