Dartmouth Names Alice Ruth as CIO

Dartmouth College today named Alice Ruth as chief investment officer to manage its $4.5 billion endowment and $1 billion of assets tied to other funds.

Ruth served as founding CIO of Bloomberg’s family office and charitable funds operation, Willett Advisors, from 2008 until December, according to her LinkedIn profile. She has also served on Dartmouth’s investment committee since 2011. A spokesperson for the university said Ruth will resign her member role.

Hiring internal investment staff from the governance committee is unusual, without precedent in the many senior hires elite endowments have made in recent years.

The university’s current CIO, Pamela Peedin, chose to step down to spend more time with her family, according to Dartmouth, which in November announced its search for her replacement. She will work part-time through June, the end of its fiscal year, to assist Ruth with transitioning the Boston-based investment office and its staff of 13, the spokesperson said.

Ruth begins her new job in April, reporting to Phil Hanlon, president of Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire. “Alice’s accomplishments are legendary in the investment community,” he said of Ruth, an alumnus of the Ivy League university. “We are thrilled to welcome her back to Dartmouth.” The investment committee chair Richard Kimball likewise highlighted Ruth’s “stellar track record,” though the highly secretive Willett Advisors has never released performance figures for its portfolio under 55-year-old Ruth.

Dartmouth, like most of its peers, suffered a small loss last year. The university’s investments lost 1.9 percent in fiscal 2016, but had gained 8.7 percent on an annualized basis over the previous five years.