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Updated 2:03 PM ET, Thu May 6, 2021
New York (CNN Business)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.
May 6, 2021
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David F. Swensen ’80 Ph.D., whose revolutionary approach to managing Yale’s endowment, warmth of spirit, and personal integrity made him one of the world’s most admired institutional investors and a beloved member of the Yale community, died May 5 in New Haven, after a long battle with cancer. He was 67.
Self-confident, selfless, spirited, and guided by a finely tuned moral compass, Swensen assumed management of Yale’s endowment in the mid-1980s, when he was in his early 30s and the endowment stood at $1.3 billion. In the decades to come, he won international renown for an approach to institutional investing that emphasized diversification beyond publicly traded stocks and bonds, especially with illiquid and alternative assets, for his commitment to ethical action in work and life, and for financial results.
David Swensen, the pioneer of Yale who remodeled investments
On monday David Swensen despite a long battle with cancer he gave a regular class on investing at his beloved Yale University. Two days later, he finally managed to make some of the biggest money he did, 67 years old.
The investment industry has produced more than just direct and ruthless tycoons, unfortunate failures, and foolish fraudsters. In Swensen (who has run a $ 31 billion endowment for his alma mater since 1985), he had a rare asceticism when he transformed the seemingly wealthless management of the industry.
“They are great painters who change how others paint, just like Picasso. David Swensen has changed the way everyone involved in investing thinks about investing, ”he says. Charles Ellis, He directed Yale’s endowment between 1997 and 2008.