Jul 27, 2026
Michelle Knudsen is Chief Investment Officer
of NYU, where she oversees the university's $8
billion endowment. Michelle joined NYU two years ago,
after fourteen years as an allocator at Partners Capital and
the Mellon Foundation, with a mandate to build a best-in-class
endowment from a clean sheet of
paper.
Our conversation traces Michelle's lessons learned working at
Goldman Sachs, a growing OCIO, and a foundation that shaped
her investment philosophy and views on portfolio
construction, risk management, and
manager selection. We then turn to the transformation of
NYU's investment office from the ground up across governance,
portfolio strategy, investment process, and the
team. Along the way, we discuss manager selection,
emerging managers, venture capital, hedge funds, AI, stress tests,
and what it takes to build an enduring investment
organization.
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