The California Institute of Technology is rebuilding its $5 billion investment office with new hires under chief investment officer Ken Lee.
Conlon Garcia and Joon Yoo have joined Lee’s team at Caltech this month as associate directors of investments. Garcia will work in private markets, while Yoo will focus on public markets. Both will cover existing fund manager relationships.
Garcia joins Caltech from Point Olema Capital Partners, a multifamily office co-founded by Eric Upin. Joon joins from Worldly Partners, a long-only equity firm managing a concentrated portfolio of high-quality businesses for long-term investors. She was previously on the team managing Brandeis University’s endowment.
In an email, Yoo said she was drawn to Caltech’s “unconventional approach to endowment investing,” while Garcia added that “getting to play a small part in” contributing to the Pasadena-based institution’s mission to expand human knowledge for society’s benefit was “the opportunity of a lifetime."
The appointments of Garcia and Yoo bring the size of the investment research and portfolio management team to six. Caltech is also seeking a senior investment associate.
Since joining Caltech from Children’s Health System of Texas in April, Lee has been looking to build up the institution’s investment office, which has seen staff attrition over the past few years. After Hedge Fund Rising Star Patsy Wang left in 2022 to become the first CIO at Cedars-Sinai, three other managing directors left to pursue other opportunities.
Lee said he and his team have been deliberate about this “shockingly competitive” hiring process, going through more than 1,000 applications personally rather than using an AI filter. “I wouldn’t outsource screening to a machine,” he said over the phone. “It’s a human business.”
At Children’s, the Allocators’ Choice Award winner overhauled the Dallas-based investment office into an endowment-style operation and grew the healthcare system’s long-term portfolio from $1.4 billion in 2020 to over $2.2 billion.
