Anne Dinneen, Hamilton’s Chief Investment Officer, received Chief Investment Officer (CIO) magazine’s Innovation Award for endowment management on Dec. 14 at a gala at the New York City Public Library. CIO editor Christine Giordano said, “We were very impressed by all that she has been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.” Dinneen joined Hamilton three and a half years ago.
“The selection process began with hundreds of nominations from the industry and were chiseled down by an advisory council of 18 members, mostly chief investment officers, over a four-month process,” Giordano explained. “Finalists were asked to submit supportive documentation. And then advisory council and editorial staff made some hard decisions because everyone on our final list was worthy of winning.” Other finalists included managers from Harvard Management Co., Rice University, University of Cincinnati, Texas Permanent School Fund, and Trinity Wall Street.
“Hamilton College is fortunate to have such a talented investor and leader as its chief investment officer,” said Robert Delaney, who chairs the investment committee of the College’s board. “Anne is building a best in class investment office for Hamilton while she also embarks on a multi-year transformation of the endowment. We are very pleased to see Anne recognized by her peers with this prestigious award for the management of the Hamilton endowment.”
According to the publication’s article about Dinneen, “Since she started in May 2015, Dinneen has repositioned the $1 billion endowment to access the global opportunity set, embrace alternatives, and diversify the fund to achieve superior risk-adjusted long-term returns. … Performance of the Hamilton endowment under Dinneen’s leadership has been in the top quartile for the past three years, serving to maintain the purchasing power of the endowment while supporting 30% of the Hamilton operating budget. The endowment returned 10.4% for FY18 (top quartile for all colleges and universities is 9.4% and 8.8% for all endowments and foundations based on Cambridge Associates Data).”
Chief Financial Officer Karen Leach said, “This honor for Anne Dinneen is well deserved, and we are fortunate to have her working with us since the endowment is incredibly important to continuing need-blind financial aid at Hamilton and taking the College into a successful future."
Dinneen joined Hamilton in May 2015, having worked previously as director of investments at the James Irvine Foundation in San Francisco, Barclays Global Investors, Thomas Weisel Partners, and Banc of America Securities.
