Doug Phillips, senior vice president and chief investment officer at the University of Rochester will retire in September, after 25 years with the plan.
Phillips, who joined the university in 2000, worked closely with nine staff members and the board of trustees’ investment committee to oversee the university’s investments, which comprise $3.7B long-term pool, nearly $1B in operating capital, and $300M in pension plans. He also oversees the university’s $7.8B defined contribution plan for more than 42,000 participants.
“Doug has selflessly dedicated his heart, soul, and extraordinary competence for the benefit of our University of Rochester,” said Rich Handler, chair of the university’s board of trustees and the CEO of Jefferies Group LLC, in a press release. “His ability to ignore the tremendous noise that occurs in every market dislocation and focus entirely on backing the highest quality managers and the right diversification strategy for our endowment has strengthened our university tremendously.”
According to the university’s announcement, Phillip’s successor will be named in the coming weeks. The search is led by Naveen Nataraj, a university trustee and its investment committee chair, as well as the co-head of investment banking at Evercore.
During Phillip’s tenure, he founded and chaired the $4B investment committee of the Medical Center Insurance Co., which provides malpractice insurance for Rochester University’s medical professionals, which provides malpractice insurance to the University’s medical professionals..
He is currently serving as a member of the investment committee of the John Templeton Foundation and previously served on the investment committees of the American Red Cross and the New York State Common Retirement Fund.
Prior to joining the university, Phillip served as a treasurer at Williams College’s endowment for 14 years. Before that, he also held the role of manager of investment administration at Princeton University.
As of June 30, 2024, the University of Rochester endowment allocated 35.9% of its assets to public equity, 27.4% to private equity, 23.9% to hedge funds, 9% to fixed income and cash and 27.4% to real estate. In fiscal 2024, the endowment returned 9.5%, and it has returned 1.1%, 8.7% and 7.4% over the past three, five and 10 years, respectively.
