Alice Ruth, chief investment officer to Michael Bloomberg’s charitable and personal funds, left Willett Advisors after nine years, according to a Willett email reviewed by II and an industry source.
Co-CIOs took over from Ruth in January, including former real assets director Brad Briner, according to his LinkedIn page. Briner, Ruth, Willett, and Bloomberg Philanthropies did not respond to requests for comment. The name of Briner’s co-CIO was not immediately known.
Willett Advisors manages the assets of Bloomberg Philanthropies in addition to serving as the billionaire former New York City mayor’s family office. In 2008, Ruth left the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to establish Willett alongside prominent Wall Street financier Steve Rattner and a number of his team members from Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm he co-founded.
Briner joined Willett in 2012, having spent the previous seven years as a managing director with Morgan Creek. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 2006, after earning his institutional stripes at the University of North Carolina Management Company (1999-2004).
Willett, a secretive investment group, has cited two Manhattan addresses in regulatory filings, including the offices of Bloomberg Philanthropies: a Beaux-Arts mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that reportedly sold for $45 million in 2006. Ruth signed concurrent SEC reports listing a Madison Avenue high rise as Willett headquarters.
Ruth, a Dartmouth College alum, also serves on the Hanover, New Hampshire-based university’s endowment committee.
Dartmouth’s CIO Pamela Peedin is exiting her role, the Ivy League school announced in November. Dartmouth said that Peedin would step down in June and executive search firm David Barrett Partners was helping to find a replacement at the $4.5 billion endowment. Ruth has a seat on the search committee, according to the announcement. Dartmouth has not yet named a new chief investment officer.
