Episode summary
CIO Greatest Hits: Endowments – Scott Wilson (Washington University-St.Louis)
Capital Allocators with Ted Seides
· · Hosts: Ted Seides · Guests: Andy Golden, Scott Wilson
Summary
The guest describes a career that moved from rural Alaska and college basketball to equity research, derivatives trading in Tokyo and London, and eventually endowment investing. That path shaped a bottom-up style that focuses less on asset-class labels and more on owning a small number of idiosyncratic positions with attractive risk-reward profiles.
At Washington University St. Louis, he has pushed the portfolio away from a broad traditional endowment mix and toward a more concentrated structure. He says the team has reduced hedge fund exposure, trimmed the manager roster from more than 100 to roughly 30 that matter, and increased direct positions and co-investments. The core test is not whether a manager looks good on paper, but whether the underlying holdings belong in the endowment’s portfolio on a look-through basis.
He argues that real diversification comes from independent business outcomes, not labels like public, private, or hedge fund. That framework has led the team to emphasize emerging and frontier markets, including Africa, Bangladesh, and Russia, where the guest says they have found unusually attractive businesses and been willing to size them meaningfully while still respecting left-tail risk.
Key takeaways
- The guest says Washington University St. Louis has cut hedge fund exposure and reduced the manager set from more than 100 to about 30 that matter.
- He argues that the portfolio is built from bottom-up, idiosyncratic investments, not from traditional asset-class buckets.
- The guest says the team looks through managers to the underlying securities and asks whether those names belong in the portfolio.
- He says frontier and emerging markets have been a performance bright spot, with opportunities in Africa, Bangladesh, and Russia.
- The guest sizes positions only when conviction is high enough to justify at least 1% of the portfolio, or roughly just over $100 million.
Notable quotes
“we're looking for people we think are great investors. People who are operating in an interesting opportunity set people we think have a institutionalized repeatable process”
“we own what our partners own in some fraction. So if we're they own 10 stocks and we're 10% of the fund, we think about our portfolio as these individual pieces”
“Our focus is really on the bottoms up. You know, if you look at even the way we think about diversification, like we're trying to concentrate our exposures in individual investments”
“if you look at our performance this year and how we've done over the last three years, we'll end up towards the top of our peer group over that time frame”
“if we're not willing to put 1% of the portfolio in it, then like that's not a lot of conviction”
How the episode opens
Hello, I'm Ted Sides and this is Capital Allocators. This show is an open exploration of the people and process behind capital allocation through conversations with the leaders in the money game. We learn how these holders of the keys to the kingdom allocate their time and their capital.
You can join our mailing list and access premium content at capitalallocators.com. All opinions expressed by TED and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of capital allocators or their firms. This podcast is forformational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of capital allocators or podcast guests may maintain positions in securities discussed on this podcast. With eight years and over 500 podcasts under my belt, I'm often asked to recommend my favorite episode. But I can't really answer that question.
I feel like I have 500 children and don't think I've disowned a single one. So when asked, I usually offer up a great recent episode to get a listener started. Finding the best episodes in a big library of content isn't easy.
So we thought we'd help. Each summer going forward, we're going to share our best. Over seven weeks, we'll replay conversations curated from our favorites and yours, excluding those from the last 12 months.
Our 2025 summer series focuses on CIOS. We're blessed to have an incredible library of long shelflife content, and we just couldn't pick seven. Instead, we'll share a dozen gems canvasing every type of institutional asset owner.
Our summer series kickoff is a twofer of Andy Golden, now retired after 30 years at Princeton University Investment Management Company and Scott Wilson from Washington University St. Louis. We packaged these two leading endowment investment officers to compare their investment styles.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- endowments
- direct investing
- position-focused diligence
- co-investing
- portfolio construction
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Princeton University Investment Management Company
- Washington University-St. Louis
Watch the episode
Watch “CIO Greatest Hits: Endowments – Scott Wilson (Washington University-St.Louis)” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Capital Allocators with Ted Seides, this episode and its artwork belong to Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
