In this issue:

Going Public: Endowment Performance and Chief Investment Officers at our Great State Universities

Skorina is seeking: a Director of Public Market Investments and a Director of Asset Allocation & Risk Management for the University System of Maryland Foundation investment office

This month we analyze recent investment performance and compensation at top public university endowments; we also comment on the controversial severance package Treasury Secretary Jack Lew got from NYU; and we note the upgrading of the investment office at University of Illinois.

There are some common themes here.  Chief investment officers and other senior executives contribute to their organizations in many ways.  They can save millions of dollars on fee reductions and administrative restructuring, help to close key donors, and build consensus around spending plans and investment policies.

Some of their performance is measurable, even by outsiders.  Some is not.  The boards and executives who run the organizations operate with information, constraints, and goals which may be invisible to outsiders.  And these subjective measures are not always obvious when setting bonuses and incentives.

We track the performance and follow the careers of most of the top investment officers in this country because we want to develop objective criteria for evaluating them.  Then we can present the best among them to the boards who hire us.