Dear Members of the Yale Community,
I write with profound sadness to share the news that David Swensen, Yale’s chief investment officer, died yesterday evening after a long and courageous battle with cancer. David served our university with distinction. He was an exceptional colleague, a dear friend, and a beloved mentor to many in our community. Future generations will benefit from his dedication, brilliance, and generosity.
After receiving his Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1980, David worked for Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers before returning to Yale in 1985 to lead our investments office. With his guidance, Yale’s endowment yielded returns that established him as a legend among institutional investors. Over the years, he lectured in Yale College and the School of Management. On Monday, he and long-time friend and colleague Dean Takahashi taught the last class of the term for Investment Analysis, a seminar they co-instructed for thirty-five years. David was an incorpo
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David Swensen, the long-time chief investment officer at Yale University and a legend in the world of college endowments, died Wednesday at the age of 67.
Yale president Peter Salovey wrote about Swensen’s death in a statement Thursday, saying that Swensen died following “a long and courageous battle with cancer.”
Swensen graduated from Yale with a Ph.D. in economics in 1980 and then worked briefly at Wall Street investment banks Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers before returning to Yale in 1985 as head of the Ivy League school’s investment office.
Under Swensen’s management, the endowment fund grew to more than $31 billion as of 2020 to become the second largest in the nation trailing only arch rival Harvard. Yale’s endowment stood at about $1 billion when Swensen took over.
Yale endowment chief David Swensen dies at 67
By Janet Lorin Bloomberg,Updated May 6, 2021, 1:02 p.m.
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David Swensen, chief investment officer of the Yale University Investments Office, speaks at the John C. Bogle Legacy Forum in New York.Peter Foley/Photographer: Peter Foley/Bloomb
(Bloomberg) David Swensen, the chief investment officer at Yale University who helped revolutionize how college endowments are managed, has died. He was 67.
Swensen died May 5 after a long battle with cancer, Yale said Thursday in a statement. He had gone on temporary leave from his job in September 2012 to undergo treatment before returning to his duties at Yale.
David Swensen, Who Revolutionized Endowment Investing, Dies at 67
At Yale, a colleague said, he showed “there was a way to compete hard and well in financial markets, but to have our lives be about something that mattered more.”
The money manager David Swensen, who oversaw Yale University’s endowment, in an undated photo. His investment strategy became known as the “Yale model” and was imitated by other colleges and universities.Credit.Driely Schwartz Vieira for The New York Times
Published May 6, 2021Updated May 7, 2021
David Swensen, a money manager who gave up a lucrative Wall Street career to oversee Yale University’s endowment and proceeded to revolutionize endowment investing, in the process making Yale’s the best-performing fund in the country over a 20-year period, died on Wednesday in New Haven, Conn. He was 67.