After more than 20 years at Utah Retirement Systems, chief investment officer Bruce Cundick is retiring.
According to a Thursday announcement, one-time Oregon State Treasury CIO John Skjervem has been named his replacement and will join the fund on November 8, 2021. Skjervem comes to URS from investment consultancy Alan Biller and Associates, where he served as chief executive officer since early 2020.
Under Cundick’s management, the URS pension fund has grown from $13 billion to about $43 billion, the announcement said. During that time, the fund returned a yearly average of more than 7.8 percent.
“URS retirees may not know his name, but Bruce Cundick played a vital role in their lives,” said URS executive director Daniel Andersen in a statement. “We’ve been fortunate to have Bruce not only for his investing expertise, but also [for] his skill in creating and leading a world-class investment team.”
Under Cundick’s leadership, URS received Institutional Investor awards for Best Retirement Plan Design in 2014 and Public Fund Investor of the Year in 2009.
“I’m grateful for the wonderful staff that I worked with,” Cundick said in a statement. “Our portfolio is a success because of their dedication and expertise. I’m [also] happy to have been part of an organization that makes life better for other people — our members and retirees.”
Skjervem spent roughly eight years in Oregon’s $111 billion investment office, where his responsibilities included managing the state’s $82 billion public employee retirement fund. He left in March 2020 for Alan Biller and Associates, a $131 billion investment consulting business. Prior to his work for the state, Skjervem was an executive vice president at Northern Trust, where he held several portfolio management and leadership positions.
“We feel very fortunate to have John,” Andersen said in a statement. “He brings a wealth of experience and expertise from both public pension funds [and] private sector money management. We’re confident he can help us take our investment program to the next level.”
Korn Ferry ran the search on behalf of URS.
