While jetting around the globe to Singapore, India and England, the College’s chief investment officer, Pamela Peedin ’89 Tu’98 manages the stress of overseeing Dartmouth’s $3.7 billion endowment with enthusiasm and the help of an occasional Starbucks triple grande dry cappuccino.
Peedin says there is no such thing as a typical workweek. Some weeks she travels to see investors, while other weeks she prepares for investment meetings and meets with the Board of Trustees. She works mostly in the College’s Boston investment office, she said, holding weekly staff meetings to discuss investments and collaborate with managers.
Though it is a high-intensity position, Peedin said she considers the work engaging, calling it a “dream job.”
“Investing is one of the most fascinating intellectual challenges,” she said. “I think it’s an extraordinary field. Coupled with the passion I’ve always had for education, it’s a great combination.”
She said the investment office tries to consider as many “what-if” scenarios as possible when making investment decisions, stress-testing Dartmouth’s investment portfolio.
Since coming to the College on Feb. 1, 2011, she said her mission has been to generate returns for the institution she has been a part of since her undergraduate years.
With a total market value rising by $247 million for the 2013 fiscal year, Dartmouth’s endowment earned a 12.1 percent investment return, placing it just above the median of all Ivy League institutions’ return rates. University of Pennsylvania saw the highest return, at 14.4 percent, while Harvard had the lowest, at 11.3 percent.
In the 2011 fiscal year, Dartmouth’s endowment yielded an 18.4 percent return, while the following year, the College saw a 5.8 percent return on its investments.
Peedin studied psychology at Dartmouth before taking jobs as a teacher, administrator and financial aid director.
After graduating from Dartmouth, Peedin worked at a series of private schools on the East Coast, and found herself increasingly involved in the business side of education. She decided to pursue an MBA at the Tuck School of Business. Initially, she intended to run a school, but found herself more interested by finance.
Nine years spent as a consultant and managing director at Cambridge Associates, where she oversaw $2.5 billion of aggregate assets for universities, private schools and foundations, helped her transition from education to finance, she said.
Peedin arrived at Dartmouth from Boston University, where she managed its $1 billion portfolio for five years as its first-ever CIO, BU’s executive director of media relations Colin Riley said.
Starting from scratch, Peedin built BU’s Investment Office from the ground up. Before she was hired, BU’s Board of Trustees investment committee met monthly to manage BU’s endowment.
As a result of Peedin’s changes, the committee now approves investments while day-to-day business is managed by the investment office.
A year and a half after her May 2007 appointment at BU, the financial market collapsed. During the crisis, Peedin said her main concern was making investors understand that BU could weather the storm.
While stress levels were much higher during the crisis than they are now, Peedin said, she still works at the same frenetic pace.
Board of Trustees investment committee chairman Richard Kimball ’78, who has known Peedin since she arrived at Dartmouth in 2011, said he appreciates her commitment and passion.
“She’s a total pro who lives and breathes her job and takes her responsibilities extremely seriously,” Kimball said. “Pam’s always high energy and has a great attitude with a great sense of humor.”
