UN Appoints Ex-Public Pension CIO to Lead $54B Fund

Carol Boykin will be the United Nations’ first representative of the secretary-general for investments.

United Nations (UN) head Ban Ki-moon has appointed a former public pension CIO to lead the investment of its $54 billion staff pension fund. 

As representative of the secretary-general for investments—a role created in March—Carol Boykin will be responsible for overall asset management strategy, policy, and oversight.

She has spent the last several years as president of Bolton Partners Investment Consulting, an independent Baltimore-based benefits practice.

Boykin served as CIO of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System from 1999 through 2003. She had come to the then-$25.2 billion public fund from Lucent Technologies, where she spent two years as deputy CIO.

She began her career in 1995 at the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, where she spent three and half years as a securities investment officer.

The UN's defined benefit fund has a highly complex governance structure and is entirely internally managed.

Creating Boykin’s position was an attempt to streamline the operation. It formalized duties which have until this point been performed by the UN’s controller.

The United Nations actively sought to appoint a woman or minority to run the pension fund, in which assets have reached a record high.  

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