Derrick Weatherspoon is a Senior Portfolio Manager for BlackRock’s Impact Opportunities (BIO) Fund. Within the BIO Fund, he makes Private Equity, Private Credit, Infrastructure and Real Estate investments that seek to accelerate positive economic outcomes for undercapitalized racial groups. Derrick joined BlackRock in 2021. Prior to joining BlackRock, he served as a Partner and Managing Director at IMB Partners, a middle-market private equity firm focused on investments in the utility services and government agency services sectors. Prior to IMB, Derrick was a Vice President at The Carlyle Group within in its U.S. Buyout Fund. At Carlyle, he sourced, executed and monitored large-scale leveraged buyout and growth equity investments in the consumer, media and retail sectors. Prior to Carlyle, Derrick worked at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity firm focused on investing in growth-oriented companies in the healthcare and technology sectors. He began his career in Lehman Brothers, where he was an Investment Banking Analyst. Derrick received a B.S. in Finance from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Robert Toigo Fellow.