Apr 1, 2024 · 1h 14m · capital-allocators
Training Grounds – Carnegie Corporation of New York (EP.377)
Elisa Maul · 18m spoken Kim Lew · 17m spoken Ellen Schumann · 13m spoken Ted Seides · 12m spoken Meredith Jenkins · 6m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this inaugural episode of the 'Training Grounds' series on Capital Allocators, Carnegie Corporation of New York alumni Ellen Schumann, Meredith Jenkins, Kim Liu, and Elisa Maul explore the unique culture, apprenticeship model, and governance practices that turned their lean foundation office into a premier training ground for future Chief Investment Officers.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Ted holds 18.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Ted as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 0.3 Ted pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Ted, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 36:50 Ellen's contrarian view on asset allocation
Ellen dismisses conventional industry dogma by stating asset allocation is over-glamorized and calling her view heresy to many investors.
Hardest push from Ted ▶ 47:00 Ted points out that none of the guests remain at CarnegieTed presses on the irony and troubling aspect that despite Carnegie's great culture, all four panelists eventually left the institution.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:08 Kim explains the deep structural differences between Ford and CarnegieKim provides an insider breakdown of how the Ford Foundation operated in strict asset siloes and banned communication between investment and program staff.
Ted holds their own ▶ 32:21 Ted probes the balance between delegation and CIO ultimate accountabilityTed leverages allocator management insights to drill into the exact tension between empowering staff and retaining CIO portfolio responsibility.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Ted as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Ted pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing the Training Grounds Series and Carnegie Corporation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Ted opens the episode with a monologue outlining the premise of the Training Grounds series, recounting Carnegie Corporation's track record of developing CIOs, and delivering an April Fool's joke before introducing the panel. | |
| Ellen Schumann on Establishing Carnegie's Investment Office | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Ted prompts Ellen Schumann on her transition from Yale to Carnegie and the early triage of setting up the investment office, while Ellen and Meredith explain their initial positioning in privates and hedge funds ahead of the 2001 downturn. | |
| Leadership Alignment and Meredith Jenkins' Early Experience | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Ellen details Vartan Gregorian's institutional backing and attendance at IC meetings despite his lack of personal interest in investing, followed by Meredith describing her entry into the industry and early apprenticeship alongside Ellen. | |
| Kim Liu on Leaving Ford Foundation for Carnegie | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Kim Liu contrasts the siloed, alternative-averse culture of the Ford Foundation under Linda Strumpf with Carnegie's integrated, multi-asset collaborative approach. | |
| Elisa Maul on Joining Amid the 2008 Financial Crisis | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Elisa Maul recounts joining Carnegie during the 2008 financial crisis hiring freeze with a legal/real estate background, describing her steep learning curve around illiquidity and oil and gas. | |
| Operational Dynamics, Executive Coaching, and Collaborative Culture | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Ellen reflects on hiring an executive coach in 2009 to transition from flat academic management to structured leadership, while the team fondly recounts late-night manual board-book compilations and late-stage edits. | |
| Identifying Raw Talent and the 'North Country Nuggets' Philosophy | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Ellen explains her admissions-derived philosophy of spotting 'North Country Nuggets'—evaluating innate talent, character outside conference rooms, and authentic passion over standard pedigrees. | |
| Apprenticeship Through Rigorous Investment Memos | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | The guests outline the rigorous memo culture where every team member physically marked up, edited, and signed off on investment memos, serving as a primary vehicle for team-wide apprenticeship. | |
| Decision-Making Dynamics, Matrix Coverage, and Global Trips | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | The guests describe the evolution of decision-making authority, the matrix structure of primary/secondary coverage introduced under the Co-CIOs, and immersive triennial international research trips. | |
| Asset Allocation Philosophy and Investment Committee Governance | 5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Ellen challenges mainstream views on asset allocation, arguing it is over-glamorized and simple for long-horizon equity portfolios, while explaining how mandatory IC approval actually emboldened early contrarian bets. | |
| Sponsor Message: Ridgeline Investment Management Platform | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Following an ad break, the panel discusses career advancement within lean teams, proactive external exposure, and Kim encouraging team members to take recruiter calls to make staying an active choice. | |
| Ellen Schumann's Succession and the Co-CIO Model | 4 | 4 | 0 | 2 | Ted probes the transition after Ellen's departure. Kim and Meredith discuss the operational challenges and high mutual trust required to make the Co-CIO partnership succeed. | |
| Meredith's Move to Trinity and Team Leadership Expansion | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Meredith discusses leaving for Trinity Wall Street while Kim describes how Meredith's departure created necessary room and leadership opportunities for the remaining team to step up and lead new initiatives. | |
| Kim Liu's Transition to Columbia Investment Management | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Kim details her transition to Columbia University, navigating blind portfolio diligence under NDAs, inheriting a larger non-investment team, and shifting institutional culture. | |
| Elisa Maul on Adapting Institutional Practices to Dell's Family Office | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Elisa explains adapting Carnegie's endowment rigor to Michael Dell's family office, contrasting rigid institutional IPS parameters with a fluid, living-principal dynamic and continuous capital inflows. | |
| Carnegie's CIO Factory Legacy and Key Mentorship Lessons | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | The panel wraps up with reflections on Carnegie's disproportionate production of CIOs, emphasizing psychological safety, deliberate risk-taking, and the critical value of supportive board governance. |
Statements from this episode (28)
Schumann: Most foundations lacked professional investment staff in the late 1990s
“And I think at the time, foundations were a lot sleepier than endowments. Most of them did not have professional staffs.”
Schumann: Fixed income adds little value compared to private investments
“Fixed income, not going to add a lot of value. When Meredith came on board, you jumped into privates. Frankly, that's where we're going to add a lot of value.”
Schumann: Carnegie's portfolio was flat in 2001 while benchmarks fell 16%
“In 2001, Ackley was down 16% and our portfolio was flat.”
Schumann: Hiring highly paid investment professionals disrupts foundation cultures
“It's disruptive to hire investment professionals at an elemasonary institution. When you're the high paid help, you're a new group.”
Jenkins: Endowment and foundation jobs require networking over standard applications
“Looking for a job in the ENF world is not just throwing your resume in the pile and getting interviews with everybody else.”
Liu: Former Ford Foundation CIO Linda Strumpf completely rejected alternative investments
“Linda Strumpf was the CEO of the Ford Foundation at the time, and she did not believe in alternatives at all. And she felt like anything that you can do in the private markets, you could do in the public markets without giving up liquidity.”
Liu: Ford Foundation began venture investing in 1974, capping it at 10%
“Despite the fact that the Ford Foundation had a tremendous venture portfolio, because it had started investing in venture in 74, it was only 10% of the portfolio.”
Liu: Ford Foundation prohibited investment staff from emailing program staff
“The Ford Foundation kept investments completely separate from the rest of the foundation. In fact, discouraged any kind of interaction. I think that when I first got there, you couldn't even email the program staff if you were on the investment staff.”
Maul: In 2008, Carnegie's private portfolio faced capital calls without distributions
“This was oh eight, and distributions had just totally stopped. She showed me this chart of the private portfolio. Of what should be a self-funding portfolio with capital calls matching distributions. And the chart was wildly out of whack because calls had cont…”
Schumann: Specialist asset class models improve investment sourcing via deeper networks
“I really believe in a specialist model where individuals do lead a particular asset class because I think that the network that you bring, the sourcing capability, The relationships within a hedge fund community, or a venture community, or the real estate comm…”
Schumann: The endowment industry lacks organizational and people management skills
“And I don't think really managing organizations is a skill set that many CIOs thought about back then. I think our industry is very undeveloped in that way.”
Schumann: Formal conference room meetings weaken fund manager due diligence
“I think one of the downsides today interviewing and vetting managers is that you come to the manager's office, you're walked into a conference room, sitting by yourself, they come into that conference room, they control the environment totally, and Back then i…”
Liu: Extensive investment memos reveal whether allocators truly understand risk
“The point that Elisa just made about the length of our memos, you just can't overstate that. And at the time it feels like, oh my God, we have to write this long memo. But this is how you really figured out if you understood the risk of what was going on. And …”
Liu: Legal documents do not protect limited partners when investments fail
“We spent a lot of time really thinking about how a manager would treat you when things went wrong, because the documents don't protect you. Ellen talked a lot about that. We have to know that they'll make the right decision when something goes wrong.”
Maul: Carnegie implemented a primary and secondary coverage matrix for investments
“They created a matrix strategy where you were primary and secondary on a strategy because the portfolio was mature, it was fairly large, and the team, while not huge, wasn't tiny either, and you couldn't really bring seven people to a meeting, especially if yo…”
Liu: International research trips should evaluate macroeconomic conditions, not specific deals
“We grew as investors because we weren't going to those trips to make investments. We were going on those trips to decide what conditions needed to exist for us to make investments.”
Liu: CIOs cannot manage inherited portfolios because allocation reflects personal strengths
“A CIO can't manage another CIO's portfolio because you really do gravitate to your strengths.”
Schumann: Requiring committee approval for all investments helped Carnegie increase risk
“They had to approve every investment recommendation, which is not today a best practice. But what I liked about that is that I think it helped us take more risk”
Schumann: Foundation structures make routine promotions and pay increases difficult
“We started out without any hierarchy or ways of promoting people, so I did really have to go to bat every time I wanted to promote people. And also increase their compensation commensurate with their experience, because that doesn't really happen in a foundati…”
Liu: Investment staff should take every headhunter call to know their value
“Kim encouraged our team to take every call from a headhunter. She said, you should know what you're worth, and you should know what else is out there, and you should every day be making a choice to stay here. So she didn't want people on the team who were de f…”
Liu: A co-CIO structure places a promotion ceiling on the investment team
“We were concerned about the co-CIO structure, not because we were concerned about each other, but we knew it put a ceiling on the rest of the team. That when Elisa came and expressed interest in being deputy CIO, we knew that wasn't possible. It's not possible…”
Liu: Smaller allocators must influence managers through thought leadership, not size
“We're not going to be able to influence managers by our size. It has to be because they think we're smart. So how do you show people you're smart? You serve on panels, you ask good questions in meetings, you become engaged and offer advice to managers.”
Maul: Mature private portfolios cannot easily shift without new cash flows
“Because the portfolio was so mature, and Carnegie has no income in cash flows, so once you have a mature private portfolio, it just is what it is. There's not a lot you can do without new cash flows.”
Liu: Chief investment officers stay too long and portfolios need refreshing
“I knew that one of the big problems with CIOs is they stay too long. And I do think portfolios need refresh.”
Liu: Columbia withheld its endowment manager names until my first day
“They wouldn't give me any of the portfolio before I joined. They said they had signed NDAs with their managers, and so they couldn't disclose anything. So I had big picture portfolio information, but not a single manager name. So I walked into a portfolio Nove…”
Maul: Single-family office investment policies must remain fluid and broad
“When it's one person whose capital it is, you can have a statement and it can have parameters, but it's a fluid expectation.
Exercise.
And this is a living, breathing person who has opinions and is in the markets every day and also watching his Bloomberg scr…”
Maul: Generalist investment teams naturally gravitate toward specialties over time
“I decided in the beginning I wanted a team of generalists because I wanted people to be making relative value decisions all the time.
What I'm seeing naturally over time is people do gravitate towards their specialties and it just happens.”