A major New Jersey hospital system has hired Kresge Foundation managing director Donna Snider to build and lead an investment office, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.
As chief investment officer for Hackensack Meridian Health, Snider will oversee a $3.3 billion investment portfolio as well as $3.8 billion in retirement funds, one of the people said.
Snider will be HMH’s first dedicated investment chief. The non-profit organization arose from the merger of Hackensack University Health Network and Meridian Health Systems in 2016, and operates more than a dozen hospitals in the state, HMH documents show.
HMH is bringing aboard a widely acknowledged industry talent. Snider joined Kresge in 2009 after six years at Merrill Lynch, where she worked as a director of global markets and investment banking, per Kresge’s website.
Executive recruiters have long sought Snider for CIO and other positions, but she remained at the Kresge Foundation in Michigan for 11 years. She came first on Institutional Investor’s annual Most Wanted Allocators list in 2018, which ranks potential first-time CIOs according to recruiters’ reviews.
[II Deep Dive: The #1 Most Wanted Allocator – Donna Snider]
The former actuary is a “specialist at very complex asset classes” and a “highly effective” communicator, search specialists said at the time, rightly predicting that Snider “will be a CIO somewhere.”
Executive recruiting firm David Barrett Partners facilitated HMH’s search for an inaugural investment chief.
“We were very pleased for our client to be able to attract one of the most sought after ‘next CIO’ candidates in the country for this exciting new investment office,” founder Barrett said when asked for comment Friday.
Officials at HMH and Kresge did not provide comment by time of publication.
