Last year, just a few months into his new job as CIO of the University of California, Jagdeep Singh Bachher laid out his vision in the system’s annual report. He emphasized the need for collaboration, cooperation, efficiency and innovation and presented an ambitious plan for the year ahead that included reviewing UC’s long-term asset allocation, managing costs and renewing the system’s emphasis on active investment management.

“That is fundamentally the road map I’ve been working on ever since I got here,” says Bachher, 39, who was previously executive vice president of venture and innovation at Alberta Investment Management Corp. and has a Ph.D. and a master’s in management sciences from the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “It was a snapshot of what I was going to do for the year and the path I’ve taken.”

Bachher oversees $91 billion in various capital pools, including a $52 billion defined benefit plan. In addition to working on the investment portfolios, building up the ranks of senior staff and developing relationships across the UC campuses, Bachher has committed the institution to signing the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment. In February the White House announced that the UC Board of Regents — the university’s governing body — was one of three institutional investors to join the administration’s new Clean Energy Investment Initiative. This year the university will launch a $1 billion fund that will invest in technology venture projects backed by UC research efforts — exactly the kind of investment that Bachher feels the system is uniquely positioned to make.

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