The American Red Cross’ new investment chief Greg Williamson has officially begun to build out his team, CIO has learned.
The former long-time BP America CIO has started with the back office and operations, creating three new positions at the Washington, DC-based investment unit: chief operating officer, chief administrative officer, and a database/information manager.
“The American Red Cross intends to build a world-class investment management capability and organization to support its mission,” Williamson said, “which is ‘to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.’”
“The American Red Cross intends to build a world-class investment management capability and organization to support its mission.”He noted that “the addition of these critical roles is a major step in creating such an organization.”
The American Red Cross’ investment office manages roughly $5 billion, including foundation and retirement assets.
Williamson is well-known in the industry as a technically savvy investor who prizes cutting-edge operational infrastructure.
During his decades-long tenure at BP and its predecessor, he presided over a custom and ever-evolving portfolio dashboard system.
“We needed to build a platform to conduct portfolio analysis/risk management,” he told CIO in 2012. “At the time, there was nothing available, so we built our own. We code-named it Octopus—it has many tentacles, you see, reaching into risk management, governance oversight, document management—basically everything. We still use it today, with many upgrades and changes.”
Williamson departed BP for the humanitarian foundation in March of this year, shortly after winning CIO’s Industry Innovation Award for large corporate pension plans.
Related: BP CIO Quits for American Red Cross Foundation & The Talent Allocators