At any other fund manager Matthew Botein would be one very big fish in a very big pond. As head of BlackRock Alternative Investors, with $115bn under management, he is among the most powerful executives at the world’s largest fund manager.

Humbly, he describes himself as a goldfish - although he doesn't argue with the size of the pond. Botein, 38, a former hedge fund manager, started his career in private equity at The Blackstone Group and then moved to Highfields Capital, a Boston-based hedge fund, where he worked for six and a half years and got to know BlackRock as an investor.