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Newsmakers

Princeton Names Vincent Tuohey Next Endowment President

Tuohey will take over at PRINCO when Andrew Golden retires next year.
By Amy Resnick

Vincent Tuohey

Princeton University has named Vincent Tuohey as the next president of the Princeton University Investment Co., which manages the university’s $34.1 billion endowment. Tuohey will succeed Andrew Golden, the organization’s longtime president, who plans to retire in June 2024.

Tuohey is currently the investment director on the global investment staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Investment Management Co. and a decorated former captain in the U.S. Army, according to the Princeton announcement.

At MITIMCo, Tuohey is responsible for managing a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of funds and direct investments across multiple asset classes, including private equity, venture capital, public equity, hedge fund, commodities and real estate.

Tuohey earned an MBA. from Harvard Business School, a master’s degree in European studies from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University, which he attended on an Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarship. He served in the U.S. Army from 2002 to 2006, earning the Bronze Star while deployed to Iraq, among other military awards for his leadership and achievement.

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“Vince Tuohey combines outstanding investment acumen and experience with proven leadership ability,” Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber said in a statement. “He also has a deep appreciation for Princeton’s mission and the special achievements of Andy Golden and the superb team at PRINCO.”

Princeton’s endowment returned negative 1.7% in fiscal 2023, the university announced last month, continuing a trend of weaker performance by university endowments. Princeton’s endowment, as of June 30, was the fourth largest in the U.S. Fiscal 2023 marked the endowment’s second consecutive year posting a negative return on the heels of 2021’s record 46.9% return.

The Princeton endowment provides roughly two-thirds of the university’s operating revenues, and 70% of the undergraduate financial aid budget is covered by the endowment, according to the university.

For the last 10 years, the Princeton endowment reported an average annual return of 10.8%, and it was 10.5% for the last 20 years.

“Both MIT and Princeton use their endowments to support the universities’ immediate operational needs as well as long-term projects with the potential to change the world. I’m incredibly proud of the role MITIMCo plays at MIT, and I’m looking forward to serving those same ends at Princeton,” said Tuohey in a statement provided by Princeton.

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Home > News > Regulation > Israel-Hamas War Puts Cryptocurrency in CFTC, Treasury Crosshairs
Regulation

Israel-Hamas War Puts Cryptocurrency in CFTC, Treasury Crosshairs

Federal regulators speaking at a SIFMA conference noted crypto’s role in illicit finance, including in the war in Gaza.
By Paul Mulholland



The deputy secretary of the Treasury and the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission both identified the “illicit financial use of digital assets” as a source of great concern, including as financing for Hamas. The remarks were made at a conference Tuesday, hosted by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said that cryptocurrencies are being used to finance Hamas and in a wide range of other illicit activity such as ransomware attacks. Adeyemo said Treasury will “take actions to go after that.”

Specifically, he said the department would take actions against “mixers” in digital assets under the Patriot Act. Mixers are services that obfuscate crypto transactions and can disguise the true buyers and sellers of the assets. Section 311 of the Patriot Act gives the Department of the Treasury “a range of options that can be adapted to target specific money laundering and terrorist financing.” 

The Office of Foreign Asset Control, the part of the Treasury Department that enforces most economic sanctions, announced on October 18 that Buy Cash, a crypto exchange based in Gaza, is blocked from the U.S. financial system for facilitating small-dollar donations to Hamas.

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CFTC Chair Rostin Benham, speaking at the same conference, also noted that “illicit financial activity” involving cryptocurrency also is a focus for the regulator, especially in light of “what’s going on geopolitically,” a clear reference to the war in Gaza and Israel.

Speaking of general crypto enforcement, Benham said that “49% of our total docket” in enforcement actions “were in the digital asset space.” Benham called this a “remarkable statistic” and argued that Congress needs to grant the CFTC “more authority to police these markets.”

Speaking of Bitcoin and Ether, the chairman said that, “under existing law, these digital assets are commodities.”

This remark is consistent with what Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has said, which is that every digital asset except Bitcoin and Ether are likely securities. Gensler has likewise been extremely critical of the digital asset industry and has characterized it as “rife with fraud and scams and hucksters” in Congressional testimony.

Benham added that “we need to be aggressive about policing it, and our enforcement docket proves that case.”

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