Governance Structure
Who oversees the endowment?
Williams maintains a policy of careful stewardship and broad oversight of the college’s assets, especially in light of the college’s reliance on the endowment.
Endowment Governance Structure
The highest level of oversight is our Investment Committee, which assumes the fiduciary responsibility of investing the college’s assets. The Investment Committee is responsible for setting asset allocation, investment policy, and the strategic direction of the Investment Pool. Further, it approves the operating budget and annual goals for the Investment Office and monitors the Investment Office and its results to help ensure that policy objectives are being met. The Investment Committee periodically meets with some of our long-standing outside managers to gain additional insight into the asset classes in which each manager specializes.
In addition to the Investment Committee, the three Advisory Committees provide guidance and industry expertise to the investment process. The Committees specialize in either the marketable, non-marketable, or real assets asset classes. Advisory Committee members consist of Williams alumni (or parents of alumni) who have been successful in their respective fields. The Advisory Committees allow the Investment Office to capitalize on Williams’ strong alumni network as well as to gain additional expert perspective on manager selection.
The Investment Office staff is a team that oversees the Williams portfolio. The Chief Investment Officer leads the team in the annual asset allocation study, portfolio structure and positioning, as well as sourcing, selecting, and monitoring each investment manager. Robust sourcing and monitoring efforts by Investment Office staff have paid real dividends, enabling us to add hard-to-access managers who are new to Williams, and to increase our exposure to particularly attractive current managers.
Current membership of the Investment Committee and Advisory Committees can be found in each Annual Report.