Our History

The alignment of our interests with those of our clients has been the basis of our enduring partnerships.

Strategic was founded as an OCIO provider in 1987 by the World Bank’s former senior investment team to provide sophisticated, customized investment solutions to other institutional investors who chose not to manage investments internally. From their vantage point at the World Bank, and on the boards of the Harvard Management Company and other prominent institutions, our founders saw the need for a new and vibrant firm to help institutions manage growing asset pools in a complicated and often inhospitable environment.  

Since our founding, we have understood the complex role of a fiduciary and, as a result, selected and continue to maintain an open architecture platform that seeks the best money managers suited to meet each client’s specific needs. We also recognize that the best investment programs in the world have great depth in their teams as well as great stability. Yet, we also know that alpha doesn’t scale infinitely and the largest providers will often have trouble adding value. We believe our commitment to having a very well-staffed investment team (currently 36 professionals for only 34 discretionary clients) is a compelling proposition.

We remain committed to these tenets today. We still believe that experience, insight, discipline, creativity, efficiency, cost-consciousness, and sound governance can drive superior investment returns that enable our clients to fulfill their missions. As we enter our thirty-sixth year, the firm remains committed to serving a small number of clients with a deeply resourced team. In this way, we can maintain our client-centric, team-oriented culture predicated on these beliefs and, in doing so, offer one of the most distinguished packages of outsourced chief investment services available.