2025 etf.com Lifetime Achievement Award Nominee: Joanna Gallegos
The BondBloxx co-founder has helped launch more than 175 ETFs over a two-decade career that helped shape the industry's growth.
This article is one in a series profiling finalists for etf.com’s 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, to be announced April 23 in New York City. Joanna Gallegos is also the first of four Women 2 Watch in the ETF industry to be profiled in March.
When Joanna Gallegos joined the ETF industry in 1999, it was as a David facing the Goliath of the mutual fund world. Nobody was asking for another investment product, but she saw the potential in this financial product that had been launched in the U.S. only six years earlier.
At the time, ETFs were a small rival to the massive $13 trillion mutual fund industry; ETFs didn't reach $2 trillion in assets until 2013, according to Morningstar. As Gallegos told etf.com: "We were always in a challenger state."
As co-founder and COO of BondBloxx and creator of over 175 exchange-traded funds, Gallegos has played a role in shaping the ETF landscape by solving tough market problems and building teams that push boundaries. Her work on groundbreaking fixed-income products and key ETF trading systems has opened previously hard-to-reach markets to everyday investors.
From Challenger to Industry Force
Gallegos was drawn to finance in college, and that early experience in the nascent ETF industry facing uphill battles helped form a mindset that would drive innovation for more than two decades.
"I learned stamina, endurance and that approach from Mike Latham," said Gallegos, referring to a key mentor from her early career at iShares ETF business at Barclays Global Investors. "Then I happened to work for a bunch of Mike Latham's over time, because people that are attracted to work in ETFs have that DNA."
This challenger spirit followed her through roles at BlackRock's iShares division, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and now BondBloxx, where she continues to push the industry forward.
Breaking New Ground with Municipal Bonds
Among Gallegos' proudest achievements was helping launch the iShares National Muni Bond ETF (MUB), one of the first municipal bond ETF, during her time at iShares.
"That was a really cool time in ETF innovation," she explained. "Once the ETF technology interacted with that market, suddenly it became really efficient."
The project faced widespread skepticism. Many industry experts didn't believe municipal bonds could work in an ETF structure due to liquidity concerns.
"People really didn't know how it would work, and they didn't think it would work. And then it became a very successful product of fixed income," she said.
The success of MUB created a roadmap for bringing ETF efficiency to other markets that seemed out of reach. Today, municipal bond ETFs are a thriving category largely because of this early breakthrough.
The Power of the Right Team
Throughout her career, Gallegos attributes her success to working with talented colleagues and mentors who created environments where innovation could thrive.
"My success is because I was on these really high performing teams that enjoyed working together," she said. "I like to create a lab, is the way I would describe it. When I'm thinking about talent management, I think about who's going to be in the lab, who's going to add a differentiated perspective."
She especially credits Michael Latham, whom she describes as the "original archetype" of challenging the status quo and persistently working through problems.
"I am a product of the way he taught," Gallegos said, explaining how Latham's approach to tackling difficult challenges helped shape her own management style. "It taught me to do that again and again and again and again."
These relationships reinforced a key lesson for Gallegos about surrounding yourself with the right people. "You want to be surrounded by people that are working equally as hard and working hard with you," she noted.
A Legacy of Collaboration
For someone who has shaped so much of the ETF landscape, Gallegos maintains a refreshingly team-oriented view of her legacy.
When asked what she hopes people in the ETF industry will remember her for, she responded: "I hope that people will remember working with me, working side by side with me on something interesting."
Her advice for the next generation of ETF innovators reflects the lessons of her own journey: "Push into uncomfortable spaces... Lean into what you don't know so you can acquire new skills or launch a new product."
After helping transform ETFs from industry upstart to market powerhouse, Gallegos continues focusing on the next set of challenges–creating new ways for investors to access markets that once seemed out of reach.
