College endowment funds
Anyone has thoughts on Penn/Duke/UVA's endowment funds? What are comps like and exit opps? Thanks a lot
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I'm also curious about Duke's specifically.
Do you have an offer from them lol
1
Have to bump this one
All three are good - Duke's office doesn't really have an associate layer so analysts work very directly for someone quite senior and then have to leave, at Penn there is more of a full chain, which allows for internal promotion but maybe there's a little less whitespace to step into, UVA is kind of in the middle. Exits vary - while going to another allocator or business school is the most linear, Duke and UVA in particular have had people go on to serious roles in the GP buyside. That takes real initiative but in general you should be a bit of a self starter to do well in these roles. Banks will offer more structure than a small endowment office, but the flipside of that is these are good jobs if you're good at teaching and motivating yourself as it's intellectually interesting and has some white space. Culture and who you directly work for also matter a lot so think about who you resonate with and who is serious about training.
If you get an offer from one, you can ask to speak to alums from the analyst program.
Thanks a lot for the insights. Regarding Duke, you mentioned they don't really have an associate layer and does that mean you would basically be asked to leave even if you want to stay?
Yes, that's what it means. Occasionally people do stay on if there is turnover on the senior team, but you can't expect that going in. There is a significant benefit though, which is you could be working 1:1 as the main colleague of a very senior person on their underwriting as a 22 year old, and the say 15-20 year gap with your boss means you could be functioning in a very senior way more quickly than if there were someone say 2 to 4 years ahead of you doing that work. People often come out of Duke with very strong deal experience for their age, which makes them quite marketable. Duke's been running their analyst program for close to 30 years and they have some very strong placements both recently and historically.
Very helpful and appreciate the reply. Did some digging on LinkedIn and didn't see exits to top PE/HF roles. Mostly foundation/endowment/AM roles and also some B-school. Mind elaborating a bit on why you said it's "strong"?
You should ask them for information about exits if you have a serious conversation and make your own judgments. That's a perfectly reasonable question for a terminal analyst program. If you're interested in a specific path like buyside, ask about it - the number of people each year is small but their analyst program history in this format is long. You mention two other firms - perhaps read the backgrounds of senior people there.
In general private markets have institutionalized and have a more institutional hiring process that may be harder for non-traditional candidates such as LP analysts. Endowments generally like to invest in high quality, under the radar boutique public managers and most of the Duke buyside exits fit that profile. That might not be instantly recognizable as a "top" fund on this forum, but low profile firms with small teams and stable, sophisticated investor bases can be good seats. Notre Dame, Yale and UVA also have placed multiple people into well respected boutique public funds but it's not every year and those people have to be strong candidates. Good luck.
I worked at an Ivy League endowment. It really is a great seat—there’s just a limited number of them. The work is interesting and the access to top leaders in investing firms is great. Pay can actually be good too. Myself and my colleagues who were 2-4 years out of school made $225-250k. Higher the AUM the higher ability to get decent pay. Few data points on exits. Going to grad school would be the primary from there
This comp figure is insanely high. Would think it's an outlier
You might be surprised. Again, the higher the AUM, the higher the comp. This range may hold true for top ten AUM endowments
Really good stuff here, thank you for sharing. I posted this on another thread but would love to hear your insights- which do you think would be a better experience for E&F work in alternatives: regular PE investing or a Private capital advisory/secondaries IB group? Trying to think strategically early in my career since i see myself doing E&F long term and joining as a mid level associate for the places that have such a position.
I would work at a PE fund. There is a high regard in the E&F space for people who have worked in the asset class they're investing in as it is believed this gives insights that might not be available as an outsider/customer/LP. You need to be able to speak convincingly about why you want to be an LP later and perhaps be able to generalize lessons from your GP experience that would be interesting to them but that don't reflect (too) badly on your firm.
Curious if you would recommend someone fresh out of college work at an Ardian/HL/Adam Street/Stepstone type shop where you work across primary/secondary/co-invest or at an endowment/foundation.
I don't know those places well enough in their current forms to have a high conviction perspective on that opportunity set.
What I would say is that E&F is a small world and people in it want to know you want to be there. Coaching tree and who you apprenticed with is important. While there are many people who come in with different experience industry gets harder to enter as your career progresses, especially after your first ten years. Simply put, if you want to work at an E&F later, your base case should be to work at the best E&F you can now. There are plenty of exceptions to that - a good direct investing job or an interesting international experience (these are people investing very globally) would generally be valued. But no one in any field likes to think they're a retirement or backup job for someone who wants to do something else and couldn't hack it.
I would recommend looking at the backgrounds of the team at a diverse set of E&Fs and talking to senior people in the industry for additional perspective. I don't see many people with these backgrounds at the E&Fs I know, but my data set skews towards their public teams which are a less natural home.
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