Institutional Investor is pleased to announce the finalists for the seventh annual Allocators’ Choice Awards.
This year’s finalists were selected from a pool of candidates nominated by asset managers, allocators, and consultants in May and June. After the call for nominations, Institutional Investor’s CIO Advisory Board also submitted names of potential finalists and II’s editorial staff conducted its own research and vetted candidates.
Allocators: Now is your chance to vote! The winners will be announced on September 12 at a gala dinner at New York’s Mandarin Oriental. Only in-house staff members at pension funds, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, health care systems, and family offices globally may vote for their peers. To vote, use this link. Voting closes on August 9. Allocators, request an invite to the dinner here.
The winners of II’s Lifetime Achievement Awards and II’s Rising Stars will also be announced in the coming days.
Here are the allocator nominees in each category:
Allocator With the Best Hedge Fund Portfolio
Baylor University, for its contrarian approach to investing. The endowment team likes small, concentrated positions and tries to select managers early in their life cycles. Baylor relies on CIO David Morehead for his hedge fund expertise, which included stints trading derivatives before arriving at the university.
Eli Lilly, for its ongoing dedication to creative engagement with hedge fund managers. Eli Lilly incorporates both emerging and long-tenured funds to anchor its large hedge fund allocation, which has generated impressive returns with low beta.
Indiana University Health for the “true alpha engine” built by deputy CIO Ryan McNally. McNally relied on his experience managing equity and FX derivatives in building up IU’s alternatives allocation.
Loyola University Endowment, for overhauling the hedge fund book at its $1.3 billion endowment. The endowment has moved from a generalist approach to equities to a specialist model, adding biotech, macro, small to midcap funds, and TMT exposure, leading to strong performance.
State of Wisconsin Investment Board, for growing its hedge fund portfolio to $8.3 billion, adhering to a low realized beta of 0.07. The team focuses on fostering and maintaining strategic partnerships, which include co-investments.
Utah Retirement Systems, for a long-held conviction that a well-designed hedge fund allocation can help protect pension funds from market downturns. Under former CIO Bruce Cundick, the nearly $50 billion fund added hedge fund exposure. It is now overseen by CIO John Skjervem and deputy Jason Morrow, a former II Hedge Fund Rising Star.
Public Pension Plan CIO of the Year
Scott Davis, CIO at Indiana Public Retirement System, for having the courage to try new things, like reexamining manager concentration limits to allocate capital to smaller and more diverse managers. According to one nominator, Davis blends “long-standing expertise with a bold but ‘midwesternly’ practical approach to surpass actuarial expectations.”
Marcus Frampton, CIO at Alaska Permanent Fund, for his discipline when it comes to the fund’s investment process and philosophy. One nominator highlighted his mentorship of others in the investment industry. Those who have worked with Frampton have gone on to hold leadership positions at other pensions, the nominator noted.
Pedro Guazo, chief executive of the Office for Investment Management at United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, for guiding the pension through a major turnaround. He doubled the size of his team, grew investments, and hit responsible investing targets earlier than expected.
Zachary Hanna, CIO at Alaska Retirement Management Board, for helping his team punch above its weight in terms of size and complexity. The fund is one of the few frozen public pension plans in the United States, putting Hanna in a unique position among peers. According to his nominator, Hanna and his team are “unsung heroes of public pension management.”
Molly Murphy, CIO at Orange County Employees Retirement System, for her leadership both at OCERS and in the industry. Murphy helped spearhead the founding of Collective Global, which is a $1 billion consortium that invests in the venture sector on behalf of OCERS, San Jose Retirement Systems, and U.K. pension fund Railpen. Collective Global made its first commitment in 2024.
Mark Steed, CIO at Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, for his long-standing devotion to innovation. He uses machine learning, big data, and coding to inform his investment process and has consistently posted strong results at PSPRS. Steed has also set up a model that links portfolio volatility to contribution rate volatility, allowing the fund to take on more risk and improve returns.
Eduard van Gelderen, senior vice president and chief investment officer at Public Sector Pension Investment Board, for posting a strong performance (the second-highest ten-year annualized rate of return among Canadian peers). His “engaged and inspiring leadership” has led to a better understanding and articulation of PSP’s mandate during his tenure.
Corporate Pension Plan CIO of the Year
Ernie Caballero, CIO at UPS, for shepherding his team through a massive change as Goldman Sachs takes on the management of UPS’s corporate pension assets. Caballero and his team are joining Goldman and will continue to oversee the pension assets in their new roles.
Walter Kress, CIO at EY, for his deft oversight of $24 billion in pension assets. In addition to expanding EY’s investment and liquidity strategy and refining the fund’s forecasting tool, Kress has spent significant time mentoring and advising peers in the industry.
Rick Klutey, CIO at IBM, for his work to reopen the company’s defined benefit plan, an innovative move that could set off broader industry change. Klutey and his team set up a retirement benefits account, an automatic benefit that promises to return 6 percent over the next three years.
Neil Roache, CIO at Johnson & Johnson, for being attuned to both liabilities and asset allocation in the investment process. Roache has implemented derivative overlays and added private credit allocations during his tenure as chief investment officer.
Endowment/Foundation CIO of the Year
Leena Bhutta, CIO at the Doris Duke Foundation, for delivering investment results for the foundation, as well as for her advocacy for mission-aligned investing, even in an environment where ESG has become a fraught topic.
David Cooper, CIO at the Purdue Research Foundation, for facilitating thoughtful research on how allocators are thinking about applying artificial intelligence to their work. Purdue stays laser-focused on risk-aware investing and consistently posts performance that aligns with its mission. A nominator said that Cooper’s work goes “beyond expectations, epitomizing the essence of focused and principled investing.”
Lila Hunnewell, CIO at Boston University, not only for consistently hitting strong investment returns, but also for her dedication to mentoring young people in the LP community. Although Hunnewell’s career did not start in the asset allocation business, she is “one of the few people to successfully navigate over to the CIO role,” her nominator pointed out.
Erik Lundberg, CIO at University of Michigan, for his long dedication to developing the endowment and continually posting strong returns on its behalf. Lundberg has recently undertaken a plan to grow the school’s commitment to ESG investing.
Ana Marshall, CIO at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, for working to institutionalize the knowledge she gained as a longtime chief investment officer to the industry at large, including with her newly published book, The Climb to Investment Excellence.
Healthcare System CIO of the Year
David Erickson, CIO at Ascension Investment Management, for gracefully managing through challenging liquidity events, a nominator said. Ascension’s team is innovative and prizes mentorship of younger team members.
Laura Hill, CIO at Advocate Aurora Health, for “quietly but steadily” making progress in consolidating assets, teams, and governance approaches following the hospital’s acquisition of Atrium Health. Hill accomplished all of this while being fairly new in her role. “She’s heroically and expertly done the work of someone you’d expect to have decades of experience in the seat,” her nominator said.
Josh Rabuck, CIO at Indiana University Health, for his longtime dedication to the health care fund. Rabuck oversaw the development of IU Health and has since implemented hedge fund and other alpha-generating strategies in its allocation process.
Alyssa Rieder, CIO at CommonSpirit Health, for the confident management of a $40 billion portfolio across multiple pools, including corporate, retirement, foundation, and self-insurance. She has a particular focus on sustainable investing.
Stefan Strein, CIO at Cleveland Clinic, both for posting quality returns for the health care system and for producing the industry’s next generation of talent. Former staffers Alex Ambroz, Adam Smith, and Kelli Washington have all gone on to become CIOs following their work at Cleveland Clinic.
Family Office CIO of the Year
Alan M. Dachs, chairman and CEO of the Fremont Group, for his oversight of one of the largest portfolios of family office capital. Among other things, Dachs has overseen and flawlessly executed one of the best family succession plans — a notoriously difficult task, his nominator said.
Kevin Fischman, CIO at Square Deal Capital, for taking the lessons he learned at Bridgewater, including thinking in frameworks and digging deeply into building a great portfolio, to a family office setting. “I give a lot of credit to the family for bringing in someone with a less traditional upbringing in the asset management industry to run their money –– a decision I think has been well rewarded in his time at Square Deal thus far.”
Alisa Mall, CIO at DFO Management, for steadfastly maintaining and improving investments at one of the nation’s top family offices. Although she’s been with DFO for just two years, Mall has made an impact –– and her legacy at Carnegie Corp. is a huge plus. “The bar was high, and she has maintained it,” her nominator said.
Tom Peck, CIO at Hageman Group, for not only putting up strong returns, but also implementing a unique tax increment financing strategy for the family office. Peck has worked hard to institutionalize the investment office in a way that “maintains the nimbleness that has allowed them to thrive,” his nominator said.
Insurance Company CIO of the Year
Brad Dyslin, CIO at Aflac Global Investments, for tailoring the insurer’s strategic allocation to the challenging market environment, while staying true to its needs. Under Dyslin, Aflac has been active in the GP stakes business, most recently investing in Line Capital Partners.
Tim Schmidt, senior vice president and CIO at Prudential Financial, for successfully navigating Prudential through an unprecedented period of low interest rates that ended with a sudden spike when the Federal Reserve started its battle against inflation in early 2022. With 35 years of experience, Schmidt takes a knowledgeable, disciplined approach to managing the insurer’s assets.
Mark Silverstein, CIO at Sompo, for building from scratch and then successfully guiding Sompo’s portfolio for 19 years — all during changing market cycles and as the company transformed after being acquired by Sompo. His strategy was to first consider how he would invest if he had no constraints, then match those ideas with the risks the company could take. Silverstein retired in June and is now helping to build Sompo’s nonprofit foundation on a volunteer basis.
