CIO Innovation Awards: Nominations Open Until August 12

For 11 years, CIO has honored the accomplishments of you, the chief investment officers, and your top managers with our Industry Innovation Awards.

On Tuesday, December 7, at New York’s Chelsea Piers, CIO will once again bring together institutional investors and those who provide for them in a glittering evening of celebration.

Now, it’s time to nominate deserving asset owners and asset managers/service providers for this year’s awards. Nominators will remain anonymous. Please submit nominations by Aug. 12.

NOMINATE HERE

Since we started these awards in 2010, “innovation” has perhaps become an overused buzzword. While others may confuse innovation with change, we do not: Our goal is to highlight the truly innovative approaches to asset management and asset allocating, separating the merely different from the meaningful.

For example: Our 2019/2020 winner for defined benefit (DB) plans below $20 billion was Jonathan Glidden, chief investment officer of Delta Air Lines, who took the plan on when it was 38% funded (and four times larger than the company’s market capitalization at the time), added strategies that included portable alpha and successful co-investments, and made it well on the way to becoming 90% funded by 2025.

The 2018 winner of the defined contribution (DC) plan category, Bob Hunkeler, CIO of International Paper, became an early adopter of brokerage windows and led his company to be one of the first in the country with a fully unbundled plan with independently awarded investment management, recordkeeping, and custody assignments. Now, the plan offers a nearly limitless choice of investments with a three-tiered investment lineup of balanced funds, asset class funds, a brokerage window, a state-of-the art recordkeeping platform at about one-fifth of the cost, a number of participant-friendly plan design features, and a customized communications program.

When nominating, ask yourself: Who has done something that is truly different, that might have changed the way we think about this business?

What You’ll Need

To submit a nomination, you’ll be asked whether you’re elevating an asset owner or asset manager, as well as the name and title of the person or entity you’re nominating, their location, email address, and what category they fall into.

The asset owner and CIO categories fall into plan size and type, and there are special categories for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing; a new category for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I); and collaboration. The asset manager categories are separated by type of strategy or service. You can make more than one nomination, and you’ll do this by indicating if you’re done or ready to nominate another. Please feel free to make as many nominations as you’d like.

Details

Finalists for both asset owners and asset managers/service providers will be announced in early September.
The finalists and winners will be chosen by the CIO editorial team in conjunction with an advisory board of former and current CIOs. Some categories (such as investment outsourcing, transition management, and corporate investment strategies) will be judged largely on data collected via the CIO survey system.
The overall “CIO of the Year” award—last given to Ash Williams, chief investment officer of the Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) —will be announced at the dinner, and will be drawn from the winners of the asset owner categories.
The Lifetime Achievement award, which Robin Diamonte, CIO of Raytheon, received last, will be presented at the dinner.

Our Next Generation Award is presented the evening of the awards dinner, following a competitive hotseat panel and audience poll at the CIO Influential Investors’ Forum earlier that day. The candidates are from members of this year’s NextGen series here: https://www.ai-cio.com/lists/class-of-2021-nextgens/.

To nominate, please follow the survey directions here. THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS IS AUGUST 12.

Below is a list of CIO’s past Industry Innovation Award winners in their respective allocation categories, and a link to winning managers and service providers:

	Foundation
2019/2020	Joel Wittenberg W.K. Kellogg Foundation
2018	Rosalind Hewsenian Helmsley Charitable Trust
2017	Kim Lew Carnegie Corp.
2016	Craig Barker University of Arizona Foundation
2015	Carrie Thome Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
2014	Shawn Wischmeier Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies
2013	Robert Manilla The Kresge Foundation
2012	Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

	Endowment
2019/2020	Mark Baumgartner Institute for Advanced Study
2018	Anne Dinneen Hamilton College
2017	Tom Joy Church of England
2016	Tim Barrett Texas Teachers University
2015	Jagdeep Bachher UCal
2014	Mark Schmidt University of Chicago
2013	Bruce Zimmerman UTIMCO
2012	University of Notre Dame

	Corporate Defined Benefit Below $20 Billion (2018 and earlier: under $10 billion)
2019/2020	Jonathan Glidden Delta Air Lines
2018	Susan Ridlen Eli Lilly
2017	Brian Reed Computer Sciences Corp.
2016	Jamey Sharpe Blue Cross, Blue Shield
2015	Charles Van Vleet Textron
2014	Paul Cavazos DTE Energy
2013	Marie Pillai General Mills
2012	Xerox

	Corporate Defined Benefit Over $20 Billion (2018 and earlier: over $10 billion)
2019/2020	Rob Sparling Dow Chemical
2018	Harshal Chaudhari IBM
2017	Elizabeth Bourqui ABB
2016	Robert Hunkeler International Paper
2015	Ron Barin Alcoa
2014	Greg Williamson BP America
2013	Brian Pellegrino UPS
2012	United Technologies

	Public Defined Benefit Under $20 Billion (2018 and earlier under $15 billion)
2019/2020	Elizabeth Burton Hawaii Employees Retirement System
2018	Sam Masoudi Wyoming Retirement System
2017	Matthew Clark South Dakota
2016	Larry Krummen MoDOT
2015	Girard Miller OCERS
2014	Scott Chan Sacramento ERS
2013	San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association

	Public Defined Benefit Between $20 Billion and $100b Billion (2019 and earlier $15 billion-$100 billion)
2019/2020	Jim Grossman Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS)
2018	Jonathan Grabel LACERA
2017	Vijoy Chattergy Hawaii ERS
2016	Jim Grossman Pa PSERS
2015	Michael Trotsky Mass PRIM
2014	Stan Rupnik TRS Illinois
2013	Tom Tull Employees’ Retirement System of Texas
2012	Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

	Public Defined Benefit Over $100 Billion
2019/2020	Ash Williams Florida State Board of Administration (SBA)
2018	Christopher Ailman CalSTRS
2017	Scott Evans NYC Retirement
2016	David Villa SWIB
2015	Ted Eliopoulos CalPERS
2014	Neil Petroff OTPP
2013	Christopher Ailman CalSTRS

	Sovereign Wealth Fund
2019/2020	Marcus Frampton Alaska Permanent Fund
2018	Paul Ballard Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co.
2017	Raphael Arndt Australia Future Fund
2015	Jay Willoughby (former) & Jim Parise (interim) APFC
2014	Robert Vince Smith NMSIC
2013	Lim Chow Kiat GIC Singapore
2012	New Zealand Superannuation Fund

	Health Care
2019/2020	Leslie Lenzo Advocate Aurora Health
2018	Anthony Waskiewicz Mercy Health, St. Louis
2017	David Holmgren Hartford HealthCare
2016	Jacque Millard Intermountain Healthcare
2015	Mark Amiri Baylor Scott and White
2014	Al Nelson Ohio Health
2013	Ken Frier The UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust
2012	Ascension Health Alliance

	Defined Contribution
2019/2020	Mark Fawcett NEST
2018	Bob Hunkeler International Paper
2017	Bob Watson Fiat Chrysler
2016	Kevin Menezes American Airlines
2015	Doug Brown Exelon
2014	Kathleen Lutito CenturyLink Investment Management
2013	Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. (UTC)

	Next Generation
2019/2020	Elizabeth Jourdan, deputy CIO Mercy Health
2018	Chad Mhyre Missouri
2017	Carlos Rangel Kellogg
2016	Greg Spick UPS
2014	Randy Kim Conrad Hilton Foundation

	Consulting
2019/2020	Nolan Bean FEG
2018	Allan Martin NEPC
2017	Rich Nuzum Mercer
2016	Jim Vos Aksia
2014	Eugene Podkaminer Callan Associates

	Lifetime Achievement
2019/2020	Robin Diamonte Raytheon Technologies
2018	Mansco Perry III Minnesota State Board of Investment
2017	Ashbel Williams Florida SBA
2016	Mark Schmid University of Chicago Endowment
2014	Scott Malpass University of Notre Dame
2013	Britt Harris Teacher Retirement System of Texas

	ESG
2019/2020	Ben Meng CalPERS
2018	Dan Chu Sierra Club
2017	Jagdeep Bachher UCal

	Collaboration
2019/2020	Charles Van Vleet Textron
2018	David Holmgren Hartford HealthCare

	Risk Management
2019/2020	Vincent Morin Air Canada

A list of winning management firms from 2019 is available here.

What You’ll Need

Details

Foundation

Endowment

Corporate Defined Benefit Below $20 Billion

Corporate Defined Benefit Over $20 Billion

Public Defined Benefit Under $20 Billion

Public Defined Benefit Between $20 Billion and $100b Billion

Public Defined Benefit Over $100 Billion

Sovereign Wealth Fund

Health Care

Defined Contribution

Next Generation

Consulting

Lifetime Achievement

ESG

Collaboration

Risk Management