Doug Brown traversed enormous changes during his tenure as a CIO, first at Chrysler LLC during the automaker’s turmoil in the 2008 financial crisis and then at utility company Exelon Corp. amid the pandemic.

Brown announced Thursday that he would retire from Exelon after 14 years, having more than doubled its assets under management in the company’s pension funds to $52 billion. His successor, Jessica Hart, came aboard from Northern Trust Asset Management as his second-in command in July 2022, with the intention of taking the top financial spot when he stepped down.

When he joined Exelon in November 2009, Brown was the firm’s first CIO. Its assets had been managed by a much smaller team and a consultant. We “had to start from scratch,” he recalls. Exelon now has a team of 15, including Brown, all from outside the company. The key, he says, “is to hire people smarter than you are” and give them some autonomy. He always tried to “stay humble,” he adds.

At the outset, Exelon’s defined benefit plan had a “traditional allocation of 65% equities and 35% debt.” Brown and his team broadened the portfolio, which now has one-third in global stocks, another third in alternative investments and the final third in fixed income. It uses Treasury futures as a hedging mechanism.

Despite his successful track record, Brown encountered potholes along the way, most prominently in 2020, the outset of the pandemic. “We got too conservative early on” in response to the market’s dive, he says. “We were slow to rebalance in equities when they snapped back.”

Another epochal shift under Brown’s tenure was the 2022 spinoff of Constellation Energy Corp., the competitive energy business, from Exelon, which continues to own public utilities, such as Potomac Electric Power Co. and Commonwealth Edison.

At Chrysler, which was owned by a hedge fund when it declared bankruptcy in April 2009, Brown did not have a role in the company’s operations. But he kept the pension program going. “We got hurt” in the downturn, but the company’s liability driven investment approach minimized the damage, he notes.

Half a dozen current CIOs trained under Brown, including Neil Roache, now at Johnson & Johnson Pension Trust. “Good people keep you out of trouble,” Brown jokes.

Hart, who has been vice president of investment strategy at Exelon, was found through an executive search firm. “She has investment acumen and is a fabulous leader,” Brown says of his successor, who will take over on July 1.

Brown’s stature in the CIO world has been large. From 2018 to 2020, he chaired the board of directors of the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets, known as CIEBA. In 2022, Brown was a major force in creating Exelon’s Community Impact Capital Fund, which seeks to provide economic opportunities to businesses in under-resourced communities.

What is ahead for Brown, 62, when he leaves Exelon? Travel with his wife of 34 years (he has three grown children) is one priority. Brown says he also intends to stay active in investing, “although not full time.”

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