Before Thomas Mucha became CIO for Kodak’s $8 billion corporate retirement system, he trained on its history. As an investment associate at Bridgewater, he was given Kodak’s pension as a case study to analyze.

“I never expected to end up here,” he tells CIO. “Starting in the 80’s Rusty Olson, Kodak’s first CIO, built a pension investment strategy similar to what David Swensen was building at Yale. Kodak was an early investor in venture capital, hedge funds – they were a very early investor in Bridgewater and other funds like Cerberus and Tiger. So we have a deep and rigorous governance framework already in place that helps us continue to innovate.”

Having that governance structure in place was critical over the past 18 months. The investment team, which relied on travel as part of its diligence process pivoted to a remote environment. The investment team also had to examine the pension’s portfolio and some investments it had planned to make at the beginning of the second quarter of 2020 to ensure that everything still made sense.

Mucha notes that these shifts made his day-to-day a lot busier, but the pension continued to invest and improved its funded status. “We had the liquidity and ability to continue to identify and invest in new opportunities when a lot of investors had to be more defensive,” he says.

In keeping with its history, Kodak’s current portfolio is primarily actively managed with a strong tilt toward alternatives. During his tenure, Mucha has expanded on that by creating a co-investment portfolio that invests in a variety of private investments. That portfolio sits alongside Kodak’s significant allocation to venture capital and private equity. Mucha has also created an opportunistic hedge fund portfolio that complements Kodak’s long-standing portable alpha program.

According to Mucha, this approach allows the investment team to maintain a level of flexibility. “When I got here, I said I never wanted to say no to a good investment just because we didn’t have a place for it,” he explains. “Similarly, I didn’t want to say yes to a bad investment just because we had a box to fill. Those are basically the guiding beliefs for how we allocate – on a day-to-day basis we have a completely bottom up perspective while on a long-run basis we maintain a high level asset allocation that is appropriate for our particular situation as a pension plan.”

As Mucha looks toward the future, a key focus is on technology. He says that improvements in technology around modeling, deal flow, and relationship management have helped his small team maximize what they are able to do by freeing up time that would have otherwise been focused on administrative tasks. Technology is also helping the team speed up and improve research on investment ideas, making it easier to get to decision points.

“There are a lot of ways to win,” Mucha says. “You’ve got to do it your own way.”