These firms are being recognized for providing exceptional service to clients and being leaders in outsourced chief investment officer market.

Cerity Partners OCIO Winner

Cerity Partners OCIO attributes its success in its outsourced chief investment officer business to people.

“The partners that lead our practice have [more than] 174 years of combined experience working with endowments and foundations, and we have had no turnover of voting investment committee members since 2009,” Kyle Adams, a senior principal at Cerity Partners OCIO, tells CIO. “We strive to make each client feel as if they have their own in-house investment team.”

Cerity Partners OCIO manages $19 billion for 42 clients as of March 31, 2025, and more than 98% of the assets it manages are for nonprofits, according to the company. In addition to providing investment results, the company works with clients on a variety of other projects, such as audit needs and donor relations.

Adams says an example of Cerity Partners’ fully customized OCIO-related services is its mission-aligned investing practice.

“In all instances, we work collaboratively with clients interested in MAI to help them identify and define their MAI objectives and implement these objectives in a way that minimizes dissonance between the client’s mission and their portfolio,” Adams says.

Cerity Partners also created the “ALIGN” framework:

• Assess: Collaborate with clients to understand their goals and objectives, then establish how to align capital with ambition;
• Link: Once synced on goals, link those goals to measurable outcomes that can be used to track and assess success;
• Incorporate: Make these objectives part of investment policy and update governance as needed;
• Generate: Incorporate applicable MAI-related guidelines and associated risk/return metrics to create an evolved portfolio ; and
• Navigate: Amid evolving markets, seek to best optimize risk-adjusted returns and meet mission-driven goals and objectives.

Cerity Partners OCIO has also contributed to the CFA Institute’s establishment of the “GIPS Guidance Statement for OCIO Portfolios,” including participating in the CFA Institute’s working group and submitting public comments to the exposure draft to address considerations for different types of OCIO businesses.

The firm provides additional services, such as help with fundraising efforts, strategic financial planning with clients’ finance staff, and education on investments and best practices in institution management.

Finalists

• Goldman Sachs Asset Management
• PNYX Group SA