CalPERS Board President Henry Jones Resigns, Theresa Taylor Elected as New President

Longtime California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) board president Henry Jones has put in his resignation letter due to his ongoing cancer diagnosis, according to the Sacramento Bee. Jones spent 14 years on the CalPERS board, and his resignation will be effective tomorrow.

Theresa Taylor, who has been on the board for seven years and has been vice president for three years, has now been elected as president, according to a CalPERS press release issued yesterday. Rob Feckner was elected vice president.

“I look forward to working with my colleagues on the board to further our work to ensure a sound and sustainable pension system for our members and employer partners,” Taylor stated in the press release.

Taylor is a principal compliance representative at the Franchise Tax Board and has worked for the state for more than 25 years. She has also served as vice president/secretary-treasurer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1000 and on the executive boards of SEIU Local 1000 and SEIU State Council.

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Feckner has represented school members on the board since he was elected in 1999. He was president of the CalPERS board for 13 years and is a past president and life member of the California School Employees Association and past executive vice president of the California Labor Federation. He has worked for the Napa Valley Unified School District for more than 40 years.

Margaret Brown, a former CalPERS board member who has been in public disputes with Taylor in the past, said the public can expect Taylor to be especially focused on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policy.

“She’s really big on ESG,” said Brown. “CalPERS paid for her to go to the Paris Climate Accords.”

Brown and Taylor have had a difficult history, with the two publicly taking to Twitter to argue over the resignation of previous CIO Ben Meng in August 2020.

Jones is the second CalPERS board member to resign in the past two weeks, as Stacie Olivares also sent in her resignation this January.

Brown said she worries that current members of the CalPERS board do not have enough financial experience but nevertheless wishes Taylor success in her new role.

“I may have concerns about Theresa Taylor as president, but I’ll do my best to support her and to push her to make the best decision for beneficiaries,” she said.

Brown lost her bid for re-election and is no longer a member of the CalPERS board as of January 15. Nevertheless, she and two other ex-board members have formed an organization called CalPERS Watchdogs, which aims to hold the pension fund accountable to the public.

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Tags: CalPERS, CalPERS Watchdogs, ESG, Henry Jones, Margaret Brown, Pension, Rob Feckner, the Sacramento Bee, Theresa Taylor

Scott Anderson

The North Dakota State Investment Board has named Scott Anderson as the new chief investment officer at the $20 billion North Dakota Retirement & Investment Office (RIO), which coordinates the activities of the State Investment Board and the Teachers’ Fund for Retirement. Anderson, who is scheduled to begin his new role this week, replaces former CIO David Hunter, who left in June to join a private investment firm in Alabama.

Anderson joins North Dakota RIO after his second stint with private mutual company American Family Insurance, where he was managing director of corporate development/mergers and acquisitions (M&As) for the past two years. Prior to American Family, he spent nearly five years at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), where he was managing director of asset and risk allocation. Before moving to SWIB, Anderson was director of performance and risk, investments, at American Family for nearly 10 years. And before that he spent seven years as a senior manager at Deloitte.

“Mr. Anderson brings a wealth of private and public sector investment experience to the RIO team,” RIO Executive Director Jan Murtha said in a statement. “With his prior experience at SWIB, a state investment program managing more than $150 billion in assets, he has the expertise to help build our ND investment program into the next level.”

Anderson earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and he is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Eric Chin, who has been RIO’s interim CIO since August, returns to his role of deputy CIO.

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The State Investment Board said it chose Anderson at its Dec. 15 meeting. It was the second major hire for the retirement system in less than a month after it named Murtha as its new executive director in late November. Murtha had been serving as interim executive director since Hunter, who held both executive director and CIO roles, left in June.