Tim Sullivan recently retired from overseeing Yale University’s private market portfolios for 39 years.

David Demeter helps manage Davidson College’s endowment, where he leads investments across hedge funds, venture capital, and private equity. Davidson is known for its barbell strategy — combining high-performing venture and niche private strategies like SBICs.

Bruce MacDonald is the CEO and CIO of the Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Company, which runs $2.5 billion for VCU’s endowment and health system. Bruce joined the University in 2015 and shortly thereafter had the opportunity to sell the portfolio and start fresh. Since being promoted to CIO in 2022,…

Mike Kakenmaster, Director of Investments at Loyola University Chicago, discusses how a small endowment builds and scales a modern private capital and venture program. Mike shares his journey from hedge funds and a family office to Loyola, explaining how being a generalist across asset classes (hedge funds, buyout, credit,…

This podcast covers Jeremy Grantham's framework for identifying and navigating market bubbles, career risk, and the current AI investment boom, and close with his essential philanthropic work to change the trajectory of the environment alongside the investment strategy he deploys in his Foundation.

In this conversation we discuss the investment objectives of the £6bn+ endowment, charged with growing investors’ capital by an average of 5% per annum in real terms, and to achieve this at a lower volatility than would be experienced by investing solely in the public equity markets.

The number one question when portfolios don’t deliver outcomes as expected is ‘why?’ A newly updated analysis of nearly 300 institutional equity portfolios totalling $250+ billion of assets reveals the six common drivers of unexpected investment results. Join Northern Trust Asset Management as they uncover the six key…

This week on Swimming with Allocators, Earnest and Alexa welcome Charlotte Zhang, Senior Portfolio Manager at Inatai Foundation. Charlotte shares her unconventional path from tech investment banking into LP life, her work at Inatai Foundation, and how she evaluates fund managers across asset classes.

Sean Warrington is a Partner on the Private Investments team at Gresham Partners, a $13 billion multifamily office, and Ed Grefenstette is the CEO and CIO of The Dietrich Foundation, a $1.6 billion foundation with an unusually large allocation to private markets and venture capital.

Sir Chris Hohn covers: why understanding risk is his starting point in thinking about investing in companies, his view that competition and disruption represent real long-term threats to businesses, philanthropy motivations, and why love and heart matter more than ever in an increasingly disconnected world.

Josh Fenton is the CIO of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, an $8 billion pool he began leading earlier this year upon the retirement of Roz Hewsenian, who served as CIO for the prior twelve years. Roz was a past guest on the show, and that conversation is replayed in the feed. Our conversation follows…

Alan Forman is the former Director of Real Estate at the Yale Investments Office, where he spent 31.5 years before retiring last year. For three decades, Alan was one of the core four at Yale alongside David Swensen, Dean Takahashi, and Tim Sullivan.

Anyone adopting the “Yale Model” is well served to revisit David Swensen's writing from time to time. Perspectives on illiquid investments, asset allocation, active management, private equity, and rebalancing that differ from the conventional wisdom define the Yale Model.

Meet Frank Mihail, Chief Investment Officer, North Dakota Department of Trust Lands With a 3 person team, and a mandate to divest from energy, how he still made 9.4% in returns during his first year.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Jeff Malec sits down with Dave Morehead, CIO of Baylor University's $2.2 billion endowment, to explore the unique challenges and strategies of institutional portfolio management.

Ed Grefenstette is the CIO of The Dietrich Foundation. We discuss the Foundation's bold approach to illiquid investments, with 90% of assets invested in venture capital and private equity, its governance structure, and its thematic focus on innovation and emerging markets. Along the way, Ed shares insights into managing…

Shannon O’Leary is the CIO of the St Paul & Minnesota Foundation, where she oversees $1.8 billion for the community foundation that aspires to create an equitable, just, and vibrant Minnesota.

The Yale Investments Office will soon select its first round of Prospect Fellowship recipients, where Yale will offer working capital, investment capital, and training to a cohort of five emerging managers. I’ve been thinking about why Yale launched the Fellowship and what might happen as it rolls out. Yale, emerging…

Letitia Johnson is the CIO of Amherst College, where she manages the school's $4 billion endowment. Our conversation covers the subtleties of managing an endowment with a concentrated, bottom-up manager-selected approach for the long-term, including portfolio construction, risk and liquidity management, long-term…

Mike Lukasek is a Managing Director and the COO for the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Investments. Mike has been the COO of Penn’s Endowment for over 14 years. Prior to that, he was a VP at Goldman Sachs for their private equity fund of funds business and a VP of Finance at Summit Partners. Given his tenure at Penn…