Submit your 40 Under 40 Nominations

CIO is seeking the brightest talent under 40 for annual competition.

Each year, we take nominations of people who inspire us most for our 40-under-40 competition, which shines a light on the best and the brightest rising stars in the industry. We’re looking for individuals who may someday lead our future’s most important asset-owning organizations.

We’ve gotten quite a few great nominations this year (thank you for your submissions) and our nomination period is still open.

In previous years, we’ve gathered more than 300 nominations, with the 40 individuals who make the cut each year representing the industry’s brightest young talent.

We want to know who you think should make this year’s list.

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A few rules:

1) Nominees must be asset owners (not managers, or outsourced-CIOs, or multi-family offices)

2) They must be under 40 as of April 30, 2017.

3) Nominees cannot have been on the list previously. Check the 2016201520142013, and 2012 editions of the list to see who has already appeared on the Forty Under Forty (and is thus ineligible in 2017). Give us as much information as you can, including nominees’ contact details and what makes them impressive. We’d love to know why you think they’d make great candidates, and any of their worthy accomplishments thus far in their careers.

Let’s make this inspirational. We’re seeking to shine a spotlight on the rising stars among the next generation and those worth watching. Let’s face it, younger people with ambition, idealism, insight and ability give us good feelings about the future.

In the past, we spotlighted rising all stars such as Jagdeep Bachher, who became the CIO of the University of California Board of Regents within a few short years, and Mark Baumgartner, who went on to take the helm as CIO of Institute for Advanced Study. 

So email me your nominations or use our online submission form. You will remain anonymous to all but me and my editorial team.


Endowment, Foundation Investor Confidence Soars

42% of investors plan to increase their investment in private equity, while 30% said they will reduce their exposure to hedge funds.

By Michael Katz

A new report from investment consulting firm NEPC has found that endowment and foundation investors’ optimism for the coming year has risen sharply from a year ago.

According to the Q4 2016 NEPC Endowment and Foundation Poll, 64% of investors say the U.S. economy is in a better place now than at the same time last year, while only 7% said they think the economy is worse off. That’s a significant increase from the 28% of respondents who shared that sentiment in last year’s Q4 report.

“Despite everything that has happened over the last several months, endowments and foundations seem to be feeling pretty good right now,” said Cathy Konicki, head of NEPC’s Endowment & Foundation Practice Group. “There are certainly some headwinds on the horizon, but the results indicate a strong sense of economic optimism that we haven’t seen in quite some time.”

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Some of those headwinds stem from uncertainty regarding America’s trade policy under a new and unpredictable administration.

“When we think about some of the challenges coming out the changing domestic policy here in the U.S., the equity complex could be more impacted,” said Phillip Nelson, NEPC’s director of asset allocation. “China, Taiwan, and South Korea, are much larger components of the equity indices, so if there’s a change in trade policy you could see some unexpected hits to those markets.”

Despite this uncertainty, investors said they are bullish on U.S. equities, with 26% of respondents expecting them to be the top performing asset class in 2017.

Some of the investor optimism is also based on the fact that many are expecting interest rates to rise during the year.

“We asked them where interest rates would be by the end of the year and they said 50 to 100 basis points higher,” said Konicki. “So I think they are a little more aggressive than what’s priced into the markets.”

But not everything is seen through rose-colored lenses for investors. Despite the increased confidence, 47% think the S&P 500 will only return between 0% and 5% this year. And when asked what they thought was the biggest threat to their near-term investment performance, 46% of respondents said geopolitics and political uncertainty, while 38% cited a slowdown in global growth is their biggest concern.

The report also found that 42% of investors plan to increase their investment in private equity, while 30% said they will reduce their exposure to hedge funds. Only 2% said they expect hedge funds to be the strongest performing asset class in 2017. Additionally, 68% of respondents believe interest rates will rise by more than 51 basis points this year.

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