Influential Investors Forum

Mr. Ailman has been the chief investment officer of CalSTRS for 18 years. He leads an investment staff of 160 and oversees a portfolio valued at $229.2 billion as of September 30, 2018. He has over 35 years of institutional investment experience. Each year, he is recognized as one of the top CIOs both in the U.S. and globally, and he is chair of the SASB Investor Advisory Group, helping promote integration of the standards in security analysis and portfolio construction. In 2016, he was part of the first cohort to achieve a Fundamentals of Sustainable Accounting (FSA) credential. He has served on several boards and advisory boards in the U.S. and U.K. He is the North American chair of the 300 Club, a group of leading investment professionals from around the globe, and is co-chair of the Milken Global Capital Markets Committee. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, from CIO of the Year in 2000 to being named the number three CIO in the world and Investment Innovator of the Year in 2013. In November 2017, Mr. Ailman received Institutional Investor magazine’s first Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Ailman is a regular guest on the TV and radio and is frequently quoted in in major financial publications. He has a BA from UC Santa Barbara, is married with three daughters and is a committed Promise Keeper.

Raphael Arndt was appointed as the Chief Investment Officer of the Future Fund of Australia in 2014. He leads a multi-disciplinary investment team, managing A$175 billion, making investments across all asset classes and geographies. In particular he focusses on the Fund’s ‘joined up’ investment process, bringing together top down macro views and bottom up sector opportunities to construct the best overall portfolio. Raphael was previously the Fund’s Head of Infrastructure and Timberland where he was responsible for establishing both the Timberland and Infrastructure investment programs. Raphael is also Chairman of the Investment Committee and a Board Member of the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, Australia’s largest community foundation. Raphael started his career as an Engineer working with Ove Arup & Partners in Melbourne and London. He holds Engineering and Commerce degrees and a PhD from the University of Melbourne which focused on risk allocation in Public Private Partnerships.

Mathematician and Former CEO of Credit Lyonnais Asset Management (“CLAM”, AUM €70B). Having spent more than 10 years with CLAM in diverse senior roles (CIO, Head of Financial Engineering and Quantitative Investment Management), Mr Choueifaty left in 2004, went back to Mathematics research and founded the Maximum Diversification^® approach and TOBAM in 2005.

As one of the pioneers of the smart beta movement, Yves Choueifaty is a frequent speaker at conferences and is a member of The 300 Club (17 members throughout the world), whose mission is to raise awareness about the potential impact of current market thinking and behaviors.

Mr Choueifaty graduated in 1992 from ENSAE (leading French Engineering School) in Statistics, Actuarial studies, Finance, and Artificial Intelligence.

Jonathan Grabel is the chief investment officer for the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association.  Mr. Grabel manages a $55 billion defined benefit pension fund on behalf of LACERA’s 165,000 active and retired members. In addition, he oversees the investments for the LACERA-administered $700 million healthcare benefits program. Prior to his appointment with LACERA, Mr. Grabel was the chief investment officer for the Public Employees Retirement Association of New Mexico.  In this role, he had responsibility for the NM PERA defined benefit and defined contribution plans.  Mr. Grabel also served as chief investment officer for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. Previously, he was a general partner at Baker Capital, a New York-based private equity firm.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Grabel was an investment banker at SBC Warburg and with Nomura Securities. He also worked in public accounting at Arthur Andersen. Mr. Grabel received his BS in economics from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  He is a CPA.

Gail Greenwald is vice chair and investment committee chair for the board of the Sierra Club Foundation. She is an active seed-level investor in clean energy ventures and an experienced senior executive with more than 25 years’ experience in technology-intensive companies. Gail holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from MIT and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

David joined Hartford HealthCare as its Chief Investment Officer to build a comprehensive, sustainable best-in-class structure for Hartford HealthCare members to efficiently pool their endowment, pension and insurance assets. Prior to joining HHC in May of 2010, David was Principal Investment Officer for the Connecticut State Treasury for 4 years and Executive Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager at DSI/UBS Asset Management for 13 years. Prior work experience includes three years in London doing brokerage and securities research. David is widely recognized for his long-term, top quartile performance record and often referenced as an industry expert on institutional manager selection, asset allocation and risk function design. David earned his MBA at Columbia University, BA in Economics at Denison University and studied French at Yale University.

Kristina Koutrakos is the Director of Portfolio Strategies for the Virginia Retirement System. The VRS invests over $80 billion for public sector employees in the Commonwealth. Kristina is responsible for identifying and implementing cross-asset class investment ideas within the Plan’s portfolio. She is a member of the Management Committee and chairs the Strategy Working Group which facilitates cross-asset decision making and evaluates positioning across asset classes. Through her work, she interacts with asset managers, research firms, and investment companies around the world.
Kristina has been an investor in the asset management industry for almost twenty years. Most recently, she founded Kyria Capital Management to develop research and deploy capital to women-run alternative investment firms. Previously, she was a Managing Director and Investment Strategist for a multi-family office. Kristina began her career in fixed income portfolio management. She was a portfolio manager at Western Asset and a Director at BlackRock, helping to build their synthetic credit platform. Kristina is a CAIA charter holder and holds a BA in Economics from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Leslie K. Lenzo, CFA is Chief Investment Officer at Advocate Aurora Health in Illinois and Wisconsin.  In her role at Advocate Aurora, Ms. Lenzo oversees the investment of $11 billion in corporate and pension assets.  She also oversees the investment options available in the organization’s $6 billion defined contribution plans.  Prior to Advocate Aurora Ms. Lenzo was a senior member of the investment team at Northwestern Memorial Healthcare in Chicago.  Ms. Lenzo started her career with the investment program at Partners Health Care in Boston and she then took a brief detour to the sell side, spending two years in equity research covering Healthcare Services at SG Cowen.  Ms. Lenzo holds a BA in Economics and Government from Georgetown University and a MBA in Finance from Boston University.  She is also a CFA charter holder.  Ms. Lenzo resides in Illinois with her husband, four young sons, and their Boston Terrier.

Carrie is the Portfolio Manager overseeing CalSTRS’ Risk Mitigating Strategies (RMS) team. RMS has a strategic allocation of 9% with the objective of diversifying the $220 billion CalSTRS plan. Investment strategies within RMS include long duration, trend following, global macro and systematic risk premia. Carrie joined CalSTRS in 2009 with four years of experience as a portfolio manager at an equity market neutral hedge fund responsible for European and Asian quantitative funds. Prior to that, she was a research analyst for a mutual fund and a corporate finance analyst at Salomon Smith Barney. She earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration from University of California, Berkeley, and a Masters in Finance from London Business School. Carrie also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations. An avid cyclist, Carrie is on the board of the Sacramento Valley Velodrome Association, which seeks to bring a bicycle park to the region.

Chad Myhre is a Portfolio Manager covering hedge fund and public equity investments at the $44 billion Public Schools Retirement System of Missouri. Prior to joining PSRS, he oversaw the $2 billion active hedge fund portfolio for the Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System. Chad holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations.

Fred Nieuwland is Chief Investment Officer for Mars Incorporated, and as such responsible for overseeing the investments of Mars’ pension plans worldwide. Before assuming the CIO role Fred was the EMEA Investment Manager for Mars, overseeing pension investments in the EMEA region. He has vast experience in investing for and consulting for pension funds. Previously he has worked as the Practice Leader for Investment Consultancy for Towers Perrin in Amsterdam, and he has worked for ABP Investments (now APG) as a fund manager for North American equities. He started his investment career as a research manager working for PanAgora Asset Management in Boston and London. Before his investment career Fred started out on an academic career as an Assistant Professor in Finance at the University of Maastricht. Fred Nieuwland obtained a M.Sc. Degree in Econometrics from Tilburg University and a Ph.D. in Finance from Maastricht University, both in the Netherlands.

Rich is Global President of Mercer’s Wealth Business, and a member of Mercer’s Executive Leadership team. Rich is responsible for Mercer’s delivery of investment consulting, open architecture manager-of-managers investment management, and retirement actuarial consulting services and solutions globally.  During the past 25 years Rich has provided investment advice to clients in more than 20 countries, including many of the world’s largest institutional investors.

In prior roles, Rich was Global President of Mercer’s investment management business, global Chief Investment Officer for Mercer’s investment management business, and held a variety of other leadership roles while based in Tokyo, Singapore and later New York.

Rich holds an MBA with High Honors in Analytic Finance and Accounting from the University of Chicago, and a BA with Honors in Mathematical Sciences and Mathematical Economic Analysis from Rice University. Rich also did graduate work in international economics at Tokyo University. Rich is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the CFA Institute.

Rich has repeatedly been named to CIO Magazine’s annual list of the world’s most influential investment consultants, and received CIO Magazine’s 2017 Industry Innovation Award as “Consultant of the Year”.

Senior Vice President
 Investment professional since 1995
 FEG team member since 1999
Education:
 BA in History and Political Science, Miami University
Experience:
 Robert W. Baird & Co. – Research Assistant
Memberships:
 Bikes Belong
 FEG Responsive Investing Committee
 Hoosier Environmental Council
 Hoosier Mountain Bike Association
 US SIF – The Social Investment Forum
 The Sierra Club
 CAIA Association

Ms. Oh is the Senior Portfolio Manager of Risk Parity and Currency Hedging for the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS), a $55 billion defined benefit pension plan.  She focuses on asset allocation and strategy development to improve total fund diversification and risk-adjusted return.  She is responsible for managing a $6 billion Risk Parity mandate, with $3 billion of the mandate being managed internally.  She is also responsible for $6 billion plan-wide currency hedging strategy. 

Ms. Oh has been an innovator at PSERS initiating their swap overlay program in 2006, advocating for a greater risk-balanced asset allocation after the Global Financial Crisis, leading the Risk Parity initiative in 2012, and the currency hedging initiative in 2013.  These innovations have grown to become large contributors to diversification and alpha generation of the plan, and led to a greater proportion of assets managed internally.

In Ms. Oh’s 23 years at PSERS, she previously served as the Chair of the Asset Allocation Committee and senior portfolio manager of internal international public equities, which grew to $8 billion at its height.  She also served as an investment accounting manager for four years.

Prior to PSERS, Ms. Oh was a supervising senior auditor at KPMG.  She is a CFA charter holder and a licensed CPA.   She earned a B.S. degree, summa cum laude, in Accounting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. 

She serves on the Advisory Board and Women Investors’ Forum Steering Committee of the Alternative Investor Forum, and resides in Hershey, Pennsylvania with her husband and two daughters.

Mansco Perry was named Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of the Minnesota State Board of Investment (MSBI), effective October 21, 2013. The MSBI is responsible for the management of pension and other state assets, totaling $96 billion.
Prior to his appointment at the MSBI, Mansco served as the Chief Investment Officer of Macalester College, Chief Investment Officer of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, Assistant Executive Director and Deputy Chief Investment Officer of the Minnesota State Board of Investment. He has held various financial management positions at Cargill, Inc., Dayton Hudson Corporation, Target Stores, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the Minnesota Department of Revenue.
Mansco has a BA from Carleton College, an MBA from the University of Chicago and a J.D. from the William Mitchell School of Law. He was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst, the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst, and the Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement designations. Mansco was admitted to practice law in the State and Federal District courts of Minnesota.
He serves on the Board of Directors of Minnesota Workers Compensation Reinsurance Association. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors of the Saint Paul and Minnesota Community Foundations, the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and the Board of Trustees of William Mitchell College of Law. He has also served as a member of the Investment Advisory Council of the New York State Teachers Retirement System and on the Investment Committees of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Carondelet and the University of Baltimore Foundation.
Mansco was born in Newark, New Jersey. He is married to Nancy, and is the proud father of his two young daughters, Katherine Mei Xiaobing and Anna Hua. Mansco is an avid baseball fan and collector of baseball memorabilia. His other hobbies and interests include golf and numismatics.

Rob Roy is vice president of investments and chief investment officer for Adventist Health System. In this role, he oversees investments for one of the nation’s largest faith-based health systems, which include operating capital and employee retirement portfolios totaling approximately $14 billion.

Roy, who has 30 years of institutional investment experience, oversees a 10-person investment team that internally manages over half of the organization’s operating capital. He has dedicated 15 years to supporting Adventist Health System’s mission of Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ, during which time he has played a lead role in the development of the organization’s investment philosophy and process, created to reinforce its core values and principles. This philosophy, called “stewardship alpha,” describes the process by which the organization builds its investment portfolios to be sensible, efficient, and robust.    

Prior to his current role, Roy previously served Adventist Health System as director of cash and investments. His other experience includes holding the position of chief investment officer for Cain Brothers Asset Management, bond trader for Putnam Investments, fixed income specialist on the floors of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and portfolio risk manager for Ferrell Capital.

Roy earned a master’s degree in financial markets and trading from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and bachelor’s degrees in both finance from Suffolk University and applied mathematics from Southern New Hampshire University.
He currently serves as chairman of the Adventist Health System Employee Plan Investment Committee and serves on the finance and investment committee of the Adventist Health Care Retirement Plan.  In addition, he serves on the Institutional Investor’s Defined Contribution Institute Advisory Board as well as the Board of Advisors for the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College.

In 2016, Roy won the Mission and Thought Leadership Award from Institutional Investor, a leading international business to business publisher, focused primarily on international finance.

Christopher M. Schelling, CAIA is currently the Director of Private Equity at the $29 billion Texas Municipal Retirement System. In this role, Mr. Schelling is responsible for all aspects of the system’s private equity portfolio. Previously, Mr. Schelling was the Deputy CIO for Kentucky Retirement Systems where he implemented the plan’s first direct allocations to hedge funds and real asset funds. Mr. Schelling was also an Adjunct Professor at the Gatton School of Business at the University of Kentucky, lecturing on Alternative Investments. Prior to joining KRS, he was a Senior Associate at Mercer Investment Consulting on the manager research team performing due diligence across hedge fund and private credit strategies. Previously, he served in a number of front and middle office roles spanning traditional and alternative investments at firms such as ThomsonReuters, Bear Stearns, and Calamos Investments. In addition to holding the CAIA designation, Mr. Schelling has also served on the association’s Due Diligence and Regulation Curriculum Committee and the Exam Council, and currently is a Chapter Executive in Austin. He received an MBA from the University of Illinois-Chicago as well as a Masters Degree in Financial Markets from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois as well. He is currently a contributing columnist for Institutional Investor and has authored numerous articles in publications including The Journal of Private Equity, The Hedge Fund Journal, CIO Magazine, and The Alternative Investment Analyst Review.  Mr. Schelling was named one of Money Management Intelligence’s 2012 Rising Stars of Public Funds, a Rising Star of Hedge Funds by Institutional Investor in 2014, received the Institutional Investor Intelligence Award for Absolute Return Strategies in 2016, and was named a Top 30 Private Equity Investor by Trusted Insight as well as a Next Generation CIO by CIO Magazine in 2018.

Robert “Vince” Smith, CFA is among the country’s most experienced and long‐serving public fund investment officers. With more than three decades of investment experience across four state‐level public funds in Montana, Texas, Kansas and New Mexico, Mr. Smith has provided investment leadership and fund management to both pension and sovereign wealth investment programs. In the latter two states, he served as chief investment officer, presently serving as CIO for the New Mexico State Investment Council. Mr. Smith and his investment teams implement a top‐down investment process, driven by macroeconomic analysis, long term strategy, and strategic asset allocation.

B. Holland Timmins is Executive Administrator and Chief Investment Officer of the Texas Permanent School Fund. The PSF is a $34 billion fund which pays a portion of the cost of public education in Texas. It is the largest educational endowment in the country. The Fund currently guarantees over $80 billion in local school district bonds. Mr. Timmins has been with the PSF since 2000 and has served in his current position since 2003. Prior to joining the PSF, Mr. Timmins worked as an equity portfolio manager for the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) and the University of Texas System. He worked for the University of Texas from 1983 to 2000.
Mr. Timmins earned a B.A. with honors in Political Science and Public Policy from Tulane University. He earned an M.A. in economics and an MBA from the University of New Orleans. Mr. Timmins is a CFA charterholder. He is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Austin.

Courtney Villalta is Senior Investment Manager at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. Courtney currently manages the $11 billion Private Markets Strategic Partnerships Portfolio, which is a global private markets portfolio that invests across private equity, real assets, credit and opportunistic strategies. She also assists with strategy, policy and procedures within the overall private investments portfolio and negotiates and manages limited partnership agreements with general partners and outside fund managers. Prior to her role in the Strategic Partnership & Research Group, she worked across all strategies and geographies of the private equity portfolio, which has a long-term allocation of approximately 15% of the total TRS Trust. Courtney received her BBA in Finance from St. Edward’s University.