San Diego Pension Fund Names Carina Coleman CIO

The San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System has named Carina Coleman as its new CIO. She will oversee the pension fund’s $10.9 billion investment portfolio, and succeeds Liza Crisafi, who retired at the end of July after 15 years at SDCERS.

According to the SDCERS release announcing the appointment, Coleman has managed multi-billion-dollar retirement plan investments of varying risk profiles among multiple asset classes, and has experience creating investment policy, constructing portfolios to meet return and risk objectives, conducting investment manager due diligence and analyzing risk and performance. She is also a former SDCERS board president.

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Coleman joins SDCERS from Sempra Energy, an energy infrastructure company, where she worked for more than 12 years, nearly nine of which she spent as director of pension and trust investments. At Sempra, she was responsible for managing the company’s qualified and non-qualified retirement plans as well as other trust assets worth more than $8 billion. She was also responsible for developing and implementing investment policies and strategies and overseeing investment staff.

Prior to Sempra, she was a manager at Disney for five years, and before that she started her career as a research associate at financial planner Bradford & Marzec, according to her LinkedIn profile.

“Carina brings technical expertise, strong business acumen, practical CIO experience, detailed knowledge of SDCERS’ investment program policies, good relationships with key SDCERS business partners, and, importantly, a leadership and soft skill set which is in close alignment with SDCERS’ core values,” SDCERS CEO Gregg Rademacher said in a statement.

Coleman earned her MBA in finance from the Wharton School of Business and is a CFA and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Charterholder. She also holds an M.A. in international studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in economics/international area studies and German studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Coleman will start August 18; until then, Senior Investment Officer Jamie Hamrick will serve as interim CIO. SDCERS hired professional recruiting firm EFL & Associates to assist in the search to fill the CIO position.