Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
I am very pleased to announce that I have appointed Kim Lew to serve as Chief Executive Officer of the Columbia Investment Management Company, responsible for managing the University’s endowment. Ms. Lew comes to Columbia from Carnegie Corporation of New York, where she has worked for the last 13 years and is currently Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. She will begin at Columbia on November 2, 2020.
In a career that has spanned three decades, Ms. Lew has established herself as a thoughtful and innovative investor with an immersive approach that yields impressive results. As manager of the Corporation’s endowment, she has involved herself deeply in sourcing ideas and managers, and encouraged her teams to think critically and creatively. She has demonstrated a keen understanding of the ways in which technology has influenced institutional investing. She has focused on prioritizing diversity when assessing and selecting investment firms because of the competitive advantage offered by working with people from varied backgrounds who understand the complexities of today’s global markets. And, she was early to see the potential of African equity opportunities and investments in Latin America. Under her leadership, the Corporation’s portfolio has outperformed those of its peers over the long term.
Ms. Lew began her career at Chemical Bank as a credit analyst, after receiving her BS in economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to graduate with an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992, after which she joined Prudential Capital Group and then the Ford Foundation, where she spent more than a decade, first as a portfolio strategist investing in the technology sector and then as a senior manager responsible for the organization’s private equity investments.
Ms. Lew succeeds Peter Holland, who has served Columbia and our Investment Management Company for the last 17 years and who has our profound gratitude. I would also like to recognize and thank the members of the search committee, particularly Trustees Emeriti Esta Stecher and Richard Witten, and Executive Vice President for Finance and Information Technology Anne Sullivan, who worked tirelessly to find the right person for this critically important job. We could not be more pleased with this outcome.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
