By Christine Giordano
You can’t keep a good CIO retired. Markets Group has learned that Brian O’Neil, the former chief investment officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, (RWJ) will be joining the Wallace Foundation as the interim CIO of its $2.4 billion fund. Its CIO, Tom Lenehan, who has held the CIO seat since 2021, is departing and rumored to be joining the investment team at Euclidean Capital, (the family office of the late James Simon of Renaissance Technologies,) as managing director.
O’Neil spent from 2003 to 2023 at RWJ, and helped to raise the value of the fund from $8.5B to $14B during his tenure. He will start July 1, as the foundation navigates a series of changes, including the ongoing search for a new CIO and the transition to new president, Jean S. Desravines, who is scheduled to start in September and replace outgoing president Will Miller, who has helmed the foundation since 2011.
O’Neil’s team will be smaller — just three people rather than the 14 to which he’s accustomed — but insiders say he has a lot to teach. He’s known for being able to navigate private investments and his former mentee, Jonathan Grushkin, recently became the first CIO of the Sanford Health system. Grushkin was hired in 2010 from his analyst position at the Mercer consulting firm by RWJ, where he spent nearly five years under O’Neil, and became a senior investment analyst while at Cleveland Clinic for eight years. He started his CIO post at Sanford in May.
O’Neil earned his baccalaureate at Princeton, and his MBA at Columbia Graduate School of Business. He resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he is a trustee of the public library and has been an investment committee member of the Wallace Foundation since March 2023. The Spencer Stuart search firm is involved in the search for Wallace Foundation’s permanent CIO.
The Wallace Foundation has a focus on arts, school leadership, and youth development.
