As chief executive of the world's biggest asset manager, Larry Fink began the year with a call to the thousands of companies that the firm holds stakes in: Show how they make a "positive contribution to society".
Now Fink's BlackRock Inc, overseeing more than $6 trillion of other people's money, is facing a comparable challenge, stuck between conscience and the implacable demands of the bottom line.
While BlackRock and the rest of the financial industry have targeted Saudi Arabia as a massive revenue generator, they were compelled to act in the wake of reports that US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly killed