Julia Mord Named CIO of Commonfund OCIO | Chief Investment Officer

Julia Mord

Investment management firm Commonfund announced the appointment of Julia Mord as CIO of the firm’s outsourced CIO practice, effective March 31.

Mord will succeed Deborah Spalding, who left Commonfund in September 2024 to join Conservation International as its global head of nature finance. Mark Anson, Commonfund’s CEO and CIO, has filled the role in the interim.

Mord is currently deputy CIO in the Tulane University Investment Management Office, where she led the development and oversight of public market investments within the university’s $2.4 billion endowment and spearheaded the creation of the university’s environmental, social and governance investment policy.

Mord will also chair Commonfund OCIO’s investment and asset allocation committees and will be a member of the private nonprofit’s executive group.

Want the latest institutional investment industry news and insights? Sign up for CIO newsletters. 

Commonfund manages $16 billion in assets for 118 outsourcing clients, as of December 31, 2024. The firm counts educational institutions, foundations, public pension funds and other nonprofits among its clients.

“We are thrilled to welcome Julia to Commonfund OCIO and look forward to leveraging her deep investment and institutional expertise as our next CIO,” Yates said in a statement. “Julia’s investment acumen, leadership skills and established industry credibility will enhance our clients’ financial resources to help them effectively achieve their goals.”

Mord was previously an investment officer at multi-asset family office manager AI International. She held roles on the portfolio trading desk at Jefferies and in Ernest & Young’s strategic advisory services group. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I am honored and excited to accept the opportunity to join Commonfund OCIO as Chief Investment Officer,” Mord said in a statement, “I deeply value the chance to work alongside such a talented team and am eager to contribute to the success of the organization. I look forward to advancing our shared mission of growing and managing client portfolios that drive meaningful impact for their organizations.”

Related Stories:

Singapore’s GIC Names Bryan Yeo as CIO

Frank Tessier Named CIO of Santa Clara University’s $1.55B Endowment

Will Maslovsky Appointed CIO of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Tags: Commonfund, Commonfund OCIO, Julia Mord, OCIO, Tim Yates

Over the past 10 years, institutional ownership of exchange-traded funds has increased significantly. According to S&P Global, in 2013, asset owners—including pension funds, endowments, foundations and sovereign wealth funds—owned just more than $10 billion in ETFs. By the end of 2023, these funds had more than $56 billion invested using ETFs.

Cerulli Associates research confirms that institutional investors are increasingly utilizing ETFs: Approximately 80% of institutional allocators surveyed by Cerulli have ETFs in their portfolios, but only 16% reported using ETFs as a core portfolio holding.

State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which tracks the performance of the S&P 500, has more than $600 billion in assets under management, and the ETF has become a staple of some allocators’ portfolios. Data from FactSet Research Systems about Form 13F filings for the third quarter of 2024 showed 23 pension funds holding the SPDR ETF, abbreviated SPY on ETF tracking tickers.

According to the respective companies’ 13Fs, some funds hold between 70% and 100% of their publicly listed assets in a handful of ETFs. These figures do not include mutual fund holdings, international equity exposures or equity exposures from external managers.

For more stories like this, sign up for the CIO Alert newsletter. 

Among those with significant allocations, the CVS Health Corp. had more than 71% of its listed portfolio in SPY alone, as of the end of Q3 2024, per the company’s form 13F. SPY was one of only five holdings; three of the other four are also ETFs. The company’s holdings in SPY Increased from 36% in the first quarter of 2023. CVS reported $230 million in assets in its 13F; the company manages $27 billion in assets in a defined contribution plan for plan year 2023, according to the company’s Form 5500. It is not immediately apparent which CVS portfolio holds the ETF assets.

Dow Chemical Co. allocated 91.13% of its assets to the SPY ETF, or $301 million, according to its 13F from Q3 last year. The plan held 7% of its portfolio in two bond ETFs. The $10 billion pension fund was frozen in 2021.

“Large ETF allocations may especially make sense for frozen pensions or those with assets in run-off mode,” says Michael Ashley Schulman, founding partner in and CIO of Running Point Capital Advisors. “They allow for quick portfolio adjustments in response to environmental concerns, risks or new opportunities.”

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, in its 13F, reported nearly 100% of its reported holdings, $628 million, in SPY. The endowment manages more than $22 billion in assets.

The Freedom Together Foundation (formerly the JPB Foundation) had allocated 63% of its portfolio, or $595 million, to the SPY ETF in Q3 last year; the rest of its holdings, per its most recent 13F, were in various stocks. The foundation had 2.75 billion in assets in total in 2023.

The University of Illinois Foundation reported 63% of its 13F assets in SPY, or $170 million, with another roughly $90 million in other ETFs. The foundation manages $3 billion in assets in total.