By David G. Barry
In seeking to build out Grinnell College’s
investment office, Chief Investment Officer Jainen Thayer has gotten, in
his owns words, “creative.”
Desiring an “exceptional team,” Thayer over the past year had added three individuals from New England – Valbona
Schwab, Robert Welch and Lacey Farrell Johnson – and established an
office in Boston, a city located 1,250 miles from Grinnell, Iowa.
“My primary objective in continuing to build the investment office is to
assemble an exceptional team,” he tells Markets Group. “The flexibility
afforded by the college’s administration and the emergence of remote work
driven by the pandemic allowed me to be creative in achieving this goal.”
Grinnell is not the first school to have an investment
office situated away from campus. Williams College and Dartmouth College both
have offices in Boston. Hamilton College had an office in Connecticut and Colby
College had an office in New York City. But Grinnell’s may be the farthest from
its school and may provide a blueprint for other institutional investors that
are struggling to fill roles on their teams.
Grinnell has not yet disclosed its results for the fiscal year ended June 30,
but during the 2021-22 fiscal year, the college ‘s endowment grew from $2.1
billion to $2.9 billion.
“The team’s expansion is consistent with the current size and complexity of the
investment portfolio and also provides the college with the resources needed to
manage (its) assets effectively,” said Thayer, who became CIO in 2018 after
being CIO at Oberlin College.
In addition to the three in Boston and Thayer, Grinnell’s investment team
includes Austin Johnk, who is an investment officer; Kelly Sandquist,
who is director of investment operations; Nicholas Michael, who is
investment operations accountant; and an administrative assistant, Allison
Vosburg.
The expansion, he said, also “increases the probability that the historical
success of Grinnell’s investment program will continue as we support the
mission of the college.”
Schwab joined Grinnell in September 2021 as managing director after spending
seven years at Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), which was previously known as
the CareGroup Investment Office. While at BILH, she served as a managing director
and vice president of finance. Her background also includes serving as a
portfolio manager and head of research for Partners Health Care System in
Boston and holding a senior investment position at Duff & Phelps.
Welch also came aboard in 2021 as an investment officer. He previously was
director of research in Bowdoin College’s investment office in Brunswick,
Maine.
And Johnson joined last month as director of investments.
She had been a managing partner at Boston’s Alumni Ventures, a $1 billion network-powered
venture capital firm. Previously, Johnson had worked with Schwab as an
investment associate at the CareGroup Investment Office, which managed $3
billion of combined endowment and pension assets. While there, she managed
investment opportunities across asset classes and strategies, including venture
capital, buyout, private credit, and marketable alternative strategies. Her
background also includes roles with J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Goldman
Sachs.
The three, said Thayer, “are exceptional team members who bring a wealth of
knowledge and experience to the investment office.”