Yale University To Establish Swensen Institute With $20 Million Gift

Yale University has announced that it has received a $20 million gift from an anonymous donor, which it will use to create the Swensen Asset Management Institute in its School of Management (SOM).

The new institute is named for the late David F. Swensen, who served as Yale’s chief investment officer for more than 35 years with a record of investment success that made him legendary in higher education and philanthropic circles. Swensen died in 2021 after a long battle with cancer.

Yale plans for the new institute to build on its SOM’s leadership in the study of asset management, asset pricing, and finance. In addition to creating an endowment that will fund the institute’s ongoing activities and its directorship, the gift will help create a new endowed professorship, provide scholarship funding for students in the Master’s Degree in Asset Management program, and support other programming aimed at enhancing the practice of asset management.

According to Kerwin K. Charles, SOM’s Indra K. Nooyi Dean and Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Economics, Policy, and Management, the new Swensen Institute “will build on SOM’s tradition of phenomenal academic work in the area of finance and further amplify our ability to impact this critical field by demonstrating how effective and principled, values-based asset management serves both business and society.”

The Swensen Institute will be directed by Tobias J. Moskowitz, the Dean Takahashi ’80 B.A., ’83 M.P.P.M. Professor of Finance at Yale. Moskowitz, an influential scholar of financial markets and investments, had collaborated with David Swensen to develop Yale’s Master’s Degree in Asset Management.

According to Moskowitz, the new institute will strengthen both research and teaching at Yale SOM. He said, “I have amazing colleagues on the SOM faculty who are studying the most pressing questions in asset management and finance more broadly. We’re surrounded by students who are passionate about using the tools they learn to build purposeful careers. The Swensen Institute will elevate all our efforts by providing more support for new initiatives and stronger connections with industry leaders,”

Calling Swensen a visionary leader, Yale University President Peter Salovey said, “David Swensen transformed the way Yale managed its endowment and completely changed the field of institutional investing.” Salovey added that the Swensen Institute, “will ensure future generations of leaders and investors can follow his example of outstanding investment performance, rigorous ethics, and open-hearted generosity.”

David Swensen took over the management of the Yale endowment in 1985. His investment approach, which became known as the “Yale Model” emphasized diversifying the university’s endowment holdings in non-traditional assets, such as natural resource funds, private equity, and venture capital.

Swensen taught courses in asset management at Yale SOM for many years, and several of his students went on to lead investment offices at other universities. He was the author of Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment and Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment.

Joel Getz, Deputy Dean for Alumni, Development and Special Initiatives at Yale SOM, said he was “confident that the establishment of the Swensen Asset Management Institute will ensure that the best is still ahead for the field of asset management and that David’s philosophy will be instilled in future generations of scholars and practitioners.”