Blackstone (NYSE:BX) today announced the appointment of Frederic Kerrest, Executive Vice Chairman, Chief Operating Officer, and Co-Founder of Okta – a leading independent provider of identity systems for businesses and organizations – as a Senior Advisor. He will bring his extensive experience as an entrepreneur and as an enterprise software executive to advise across Blackstone’s businesses, with a focus on Blackstone Growth (BXG), the firm’s growth equity investing platform.

Jon Korngold, Global Head of Blackstone Growth, said: “Freddy is a leading expert on digital transformation and he understands the opportunities and challenges facing high-growth companies. Our investment teams and portfolio companies will benefit greatly from that deep well of knowledge as we continue partnering with entrepreneurs to help their businesses reach their full potential.”

Frederic Kerrest added: “Jon and the BXG team built a world-class growth equity investing business and, as an entrepreneur myself, I have a nuanced appreciation for Blackstone’s unique set of resources that can help fast-growing companies scale into global market leaders. I look forward to partnering with the BXG team and portfolio companies.”

At Okta, Mr. Kerrest focuses on creating stakeholder value by establishing and driving Okta’s corporate priorities, accelerating innovation across the company, working closely with customers, partners and prospects, and serving as a key liaison with the investor community. Prior to Okta, Frederic worked in sales and business development at Salesforce.com, and in venture capital at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He received a BS from Stanford University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

About Blackstone

Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our $684 billion in assets under management include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, life sciences, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow Blackstone on Twitter @Blackstone.

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