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The day after April Fools' Day, the $495 billion California Public Employees Retirement System announced that another sucker has decided to subject himself to what may be the worst job in the entire global investment industry. With pleasure.
Sacramento, California — The California Public Employees Retirement System has selected Stephen Gilmore, a senior investment leader with extensive experience across cultures and geographies in public and private financial institutions, as the pension fund's chief investment officer. .
His appointment is expected to take effect in July.
Mr Gilmore is an internationally recognized investment leader with a career spanning 40 years, including five years as Chief Investment Officer of the New Zealand Government and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZ Superfund), a government-owned sovereign wealth fund. After serving above, I came to Calpers. Valued at over $73 billion (NZD).
“Throughout his career, Stephen has served in highly public roles in organizations where transparency and resiliency are essential,” said Marcy Frost, chief executive officer of CalPERS. “He not only brings a wealth of investment knowledge to the job, but also a disposition to understand the needs of our members and public sector employers who look to CalPERS to be a stable, long-term partner.” have.”
Mr Gilmore previously served as chief investment strategist at the Future Fund, an Australian sovereign wealth fund. There, he oversaw initiatives such as portfolio strategy, portfolio overlays, and investment risk. He also held senior international positions at AIG Financial Products and Morgan Stanley, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
On the other hand, leading the world's largest pension system should be highly desirable. You do important work on behalf of more than 2 million current and future retirees, and you manage an amount of money that would make Croesus weep with envy. Money-hungry Wall Streeters will be thrilled with you, and journalists will treat what you say as newsworthy in itself.
But Calpers has become a poisoned chalice. At the top of a pension system, there are always a variety of interests that need to be managed, but the psychological drama that plays out among boards, plan members, investment managers, the media, and local, regional, and national politicians. There is something very eye-opening about the pension system. Year. A former CIO at Calpers once laughed outright (hollowly) when he was asked by FTAV what the job was like.
So Gilmore is Calpers' fifth CIO in the past decade. — although he has quite a bit of work ahead of him, he gave a roundabout nod in his pension plan statement:
“I am grateful to the leaders of CalPERS for placing their trust in me to help shape the next chapter of the pension fund,” Mr. Gilmore said. “We have high expectations, and rightly so, when it comes to delivering on our promise to serve the people who serve California.”
I hope it will be a longer chapter than those written by his predecessors. Joe Dear (2009-14) passed away from cancer, but Ted Eliopoulos (2014-18), Ben Meng (2019-20), and Nicole Musico (2022-23) Judging from the tenure status, it seems that the average length of a CalPERS CIO's stint is approaching one year.
