2025 Elite Real Estate Allocators, Part 3

Jarrett Richards is a portfolio manager on the private markets team at the $79B Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS), where he oversees the private real estate portfolio and serves as a rotating member on the Allocation Implementation Committee. He joined PSERS in 2019 after working on the advisory team at Altus Group for seven years. Jarrett is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst charterholder and a graduate of Pennsylvania State University.

Jessica Chumak oversees the $1.3B real estate portfolio at the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System (LACERS). She joined the system in 2023, initially focusing on private equity before transitioning to real estate. A Los Angeles native, Chumak previously served as treasurer of her neighborhood city council, where she developed a strong grounding in land use and zoning regulation.

Christopher Ip is chief investment officer at North Carolina State University, where he leads investment strategy and manages the university’s multi-asset portfolio. He joined North Carolina State in 2022, bringing more than two decades of experience across endowments, pension plans, family offices, and outsourced chief investment officer platforms.

Before moving to North Carolina State University, Ip was director of treasury at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and, prior to that, head of private capital at the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. He also served as CIO of a family office and spent nearly eight years at the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Investments as a managing director. Earlier in his career, he held investment roles at the California State Teachers' Retirement System, Credit Suisse, and Robertson Stephens Wealth Management LLC, after starting in audit with Arthur Andersen LLC and KPMG.

Alistair Smith leads real estate at Border to Coast Pensions Partnership Ltd. (BCPP), where he has built and scaled the pooled real estate platform since 2022. During his tenure, Smith launched the BCPP, a pooled UK fund with £1.2B of initial assets, in October 2024, structuring its investment team and securing Financial Conduct Authority approval for its UK Real Estate Main Fund. He also launched its pooled global core and value-add funds, which had a total of £870M in commitments as of November 2024. By July 2025, the BCPP’s assets had grown to £1.6B. Smith has over 30 years of UK and international experience, including having previously served as head of real estate investment management at abrdn plc (formerly Aberdeen Standard Investments). He sits on educational and charity boards, is a former reserve forces officer, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in land economics. Smith is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and serves as a Professional Competence Assessment Panel chair.

Lee Marshall is head of real estate at the U.K.’s Pension Protection Fund (PPF), where he leads strategy and execution for the PPF’s £2B global real estate portfolio.

Marshall previously spent more than a decade in indirect real estate at Aviva Investors and LaSalle Investment Management, including serving as head of continental Europe at both firms. Among his duties at LaSalle, Marshall worked with pension clients to deliver global real estate solutions and launched the unit’s flagship multi-strategy global real estate fund. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from Imperial College London.