Tufts University on Friday named Craig Smith, who has served as interim co-chief investment officer since March 2020, as its new permanent chief investment officer.
Smith was appointed to the temporary role just before Sally Dungan, Tufts’ first and longtime chief investment officer, died of cancer in April 2020. Dungan, credited with establishing and growing Tufts’ investment office, had served as CIO since 2002.
In his new permanent role, Smith will lead the university’s investment office and oversee its nearly $2 billion endowment.
“I am thrilled to be named Tufts’ chief investment officer,” Smith said in a statement. “It is an incredible opportunity to lead an outstanding investment team as we build on the platform that Sally created.”
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Smith joined Tufts’ investment team in 2018 as investment director. In that role he led the marketable investments team where he helped restructure the university’s public equity, marketable alternative, and fixed-income investments, according to the school’s statement.
Before joining Tufts, Smith was a partner at Cambridge Associates, where he managed more than a dozen portfolios for university endowments and foundations for about 12 years. Prior to that, he was an investment associate at private-equity and venture firm Grove Street Advisors for two years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“Craig’s deep understanding of Tufts’ financial objectives and culture and the breadth of his prior investment experience uniquely position him to lead Tufts’ investment office forward as we continue to strengthen the university in a context of significant change across higher education,” Tufts’ executive vice president Michael Howard said in a statement.
Smith attended Dartmouth College as an undergraduate and went on to earn an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Palmer Scholar.
