The Winners

Lifetime Achievement Award

Michael Trotsky, Executive Director and CIO at Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management

For building Massachusetts’ state retirement fund into one of the country’s best public investment operations over nearly 15 years of service.

"Michael Trotsky’s exceptional leadership encourages a strong culture of collaboration, with a drive towards excellence, resulting in MassPRIM being recognized across the entire industry,” said state treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg, chair of the MassPRIM board.

“For the past fourteen years, he has demonstrated a strong commitment to innovation, efficiency, and outstanding investment management, which directly benefits all public employees, retirees, and their families. Michael is extremely deserving of this honor, and I am proud to have him as part of our Treasury family.”

Team of the Year

Brown University, led by CIO Jane Dietze

For boasting a staff that’s “smart, well-prepared, polite — and tough.” As one GP noted: “You get a good hearing at Brown. They run a good process. Even when the answer isn’t what you’re looking for.” Standouts include investment director Gary Padula, who runs the hedge fund/multi-strat book and “has a way of asking you — as an asset manager — the question that puts the tip of spear right where it’s most tender.” As for the judges’ point-of-view, Brown’s investment office could be described in simply one word: “Fantastic.”

Idea of the Year

Rick Klutey, CIO, IBM Retirement Plans

For reopening IBM’s frozen, overfunded defined benefit plan — and finding a creative use for the pension surplus. IBM’s new cash balance plan allows the company to tap into its excess DB assets to fund benefits, instead of spending billions of dollars on 401(k) contributions. According to our judges: “IBM is encouraging companies to keep their DB plans open.”

Investment Operations of the Year

Christine Ritchie, CFA, CPA, VP and Managing Director, Investment Risk and Operations, Hackensack Meridian Health

For building Hackensack’s powerhouse ops unit from literally nothing — not even a spreadsheet of portfolio positions. Ritchie’s expertise has become indispensable not just for her employer, but the investment industry writ large. “Christine is regularly asked for best practices when building from scratch or untangling an operations mess,” a colleague said. And when there’s an ops problem at Hackensack, she’s a source of calm: “My heart rate stays steady because these conversations always end with ‘… and that’s how we cleaned up the mess.”

Leader of the Year

Jonathan Glidden, CIO, Delta Air Lines

For expert stewardship of the $16B pension fund and truly delivering for Delta’s employees. Since joining Delta in 2011, Glidden has taken the plan from 38% to 101% funded, smashing performance benchmarks with prudent and effective use of derivatives. “He’s done amazing work on portable alpha strategies,” one of our judges added. “He’s leveraged the fund in a really thoughtful, risk-effective way.”

Advisor of the Year

Marc Tourville, President and Managing Director, Cardinal Investment Advisors

For two decades of work in service of the unique needs of insurance investors. “Marc is just terrific,” a nominator said, and our judges agreed: “He’s held in very high regard.” Per one former client: “As an insurance CIO, you tend to have a very small team, and therefore the role your consultant plays is as an extension of your internal team. We were tied at the hip!”

The Randy Kim Prize for Fiduciary of the Year

Christopher Ailman (Former CIO) and Scott Chan, CFA (Current CIO), CalSTRS

For steady, consistent stewardship of the second-largest public pension in the U.S. despite huge levels of public scrutiny. In his 24 years as the $333B plan’s CIO, Ailman’s leadership of CalSTRS’ 200-strong investment team has won no shortage of plaudits, all while the retirement system has comfortably surpassed its long-term return target and positioned its portfolio to face the ecological challenges of the 21st century. The ascension of longtime deputy Scott Chan to CIO upon Ailman’s retirement is yet more testament to the system’s steady focus.

Best Partner

Hamilton Lane

For being a go-to partner for allocators building private equity portfolios. With the solutions on offer including direct investing, co-investing, primary funds, secondaries, impact investments, access to diverse and emerging managers, and tech support, Hamilton Lane quite literally does it all as far as private markets are concerned. One judge’s response when Hamilton Lane came up in finalist deliberations: “I wholeheartedly endorse that nomination.”

Institutional RIA of the Year

intellicents

For best-in-class service that treats all clients — from high-net-worth families to graduates worried about credit card and student loan debt — as equals. “Many say they can do this, but few execute on it as fully and passionately as the intellicents team,” a top pension CIO said. The firm has also been an early adopter of digital wellness and advice solutions — “always pushing forward and looking for ways to improve client outcomes through innovation.”

Best Citizen

Betsy Ewing, Advisor, Standards Board for Alternative Investments (SBAI)

For “pushing the industry in the right direction,” as one judge observed. Ewing has served as an advisor to SBAI since 2018, working with the North American committee and supporting the board’s global efforts to set standard best practices for the alternatives industry, increase transparency and knowledge sharing, and engage with regulators. Simply put: “She’s great.”

Best Bad Idea

Anton Ozornin, Investment Principal, Partners Capital

For his bet on South Korean battery manufacturer EcoPro, which finished down 63.7% — more than 1400bps below runner-up Anthony Novara’s pick. Ozornin told The Allocator that his idea came after EcoPro’s share price ballooned during a period of meme stock mania before the competition. “The company was a short position for a couple of equity managers back in 2022,” he said. “And that was before it went 10x in seven months!” .

Once the company became ubiquitous on retail investor subreddits and discord channels, the Partners pro knew he was onto something. “Given how swift the descent was for the U.S. meme stocks, I decided to give it a shot — and got fortunate as it peaked just before the competition cut-off.”

Team of the Year

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, led by CIO Ed Cass

For running arguably the best long-term investment organization ever, as the flagship for — inarguably — the world’s best pension investing nation. Judges pointed to the CPPIB-raised CIOs and senior executives plucked up to run funds worldwide. “One layer down, the talent is, if anything, even stronger.”

Idea of the Year

Steven Wilson, Director of Public Markets, Teacher Retirement System of Texas

For the creative, fun, and shockingly effective Pitch Perfect competition, now in its 10th year of attracting Texas’s best start-up asset managers for a shot at pitching star-studded judging panels.

Wilson spearheads the novel manager-sourcing strategy. The event flexes TRS’s gravitas (i.e. $160B) and his personal charm (more Steve Harvey than Simon Cowell) to promote Texas talent, seed the giant pension fund’s nursery of fledging managers, and inject a little fun into allocating retirement assets. Pitch Perfect just recently graduated its first manager from pitch contestant to TRS seedling and into the Grown-Up Portfolio. Proof of concept.

Investment Operations of the Year

Shaun Ng, Managing Director of Risk, Performance & Investment Operations, and his team at Cleveland Clinic

For going above and beyond at the $15B foundation by creating and implementing a suite of analytical tools to optimize portfolio management, to performance reporting, to staff training. Of Ng’s countless contributions to Cleveland Clinic’s investment office since joining in 2016, a nominator highlighted:

• Development of a master trust, unitizing asset allocation and portfolio management for Cleveland’s four separate pension plans into a single structure so it could be funded. 
• Used Cleveland Clinic’s internal data analytics and visualization tools to build a suite for the investment office, including more than 200 dashboards of dynamic data spanning from a bird’s eye view, right down to specific securities held by investment managers. 
• Created a tracking tool to identify Credit Suisse’s risk to investment partners after the bank’s 2023 collapse and help firms migrate away from the bank until Cleveland’s exposure became negligible.

“Shaun has created an incredible team with very low turnover that continues to deliver for Cleveland Clinic every day,” says a colleague. “He has been an irreplaceable partner through thick and thin over the past seven years.”

Leader of the Year

Nancy Everett, CEO, Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Company

For the radical delegation of responsibility that allowed her progeny to become some of the world’s great investment leaders. Over her illustrious career, Everett has captained a major public pension in Virginia Retirement System, led GM’s pension through the company’s 2009 bankruptcy, and helmed BlackRock’s OCIO unit — all while cultivating the next generation’s finest investors. “Come on,” says a peer. “Is there a career that compares?!”

Best Bad Investment Idea

Canyon Chan, Senior Portfolio Strategist, CSAA Insurance Group

For his $5,000 S&P strike option call, a move described as “genius” by runner-up Steve Blundin. Chan’s bet was all but guaranteed to be worthless by the time the contest closed – a bet so certainly rotten he even tried to convince us to disallow it. “Are options allowed?” he asked us before the 2023 contest began. “That would seem too obvious a bad idea.”

Advisor of the Year

Janet Becker-Wold, Senior Vice President, Callan

For quietly excelling over almost 30 years as an advisor to leagues of institutional clients. An “investment consultant Swiss army knife,” Becker-Wold’s work for Callan spans asset allocation, manager research, investment policy analysis, and portfolio structure. As an international investing and currency management specialist, Becker-Wold speaks, writes, and publishes as a voice of global authority.

The Randy Kim Prize for Fiduciary of the Year

Jeanmarie Grisi, CIO, Nokia

For “getting the corporate board(s) to approve freezing retirees’ benefits through three mergers. Jean convinced them to protect the retirees, and has done so several times,” judges raved. How? “She earned their respect” in the boardroom navigating assets and plans through massively complex M&A deals. Clearly, Grisi has earned the respect of her brightest peers, as well.

Best Partner

BlackRock

For helping investors with portfolio heavy lifting or a quick gut check, time and again. Clients praise BlackRock’s proprietary portfolio management software Aladdin for unifying risk and management across public and private markets, allowing allocators to focus on doing what they do best. And BlackRock, meanwhile, keeps focusing on whatever allocators ask them to.

Institutional RIA of the Year

Buckingham Strategic Wealth

For the “very, very large” St. Louis RIA’s portfolio prowess that rivals any midtown Manhattan institutional manager. "This category is a really good idea,” one judge remarked. “Conversations I've had with these firms place them at the very top of sophistication and quality of any I deal with." Among heavyweight competitors, Buckingham is “a favorite.”

Best Citizen

Justin Reed, Co-CIO, Brown Brothers Harriman

For subtly, amiably making investments and relationships whirr. Those who work with Reed as a colleague, client, manager, or peer observe the same professional mastery. “I admire so much his management style, how he handles situations as they come up. When an issue arises, it can flare up into a bigger thing than it actually is, and he’s very good at just focusing in and solving the problems." A role model who’s active in DE&I and powerful in the C-suite, he’s also “the kinda guy I want to have a beer with,” a client says.

2022 Winners