Harvard’s Money Manager Sets New Course

Mohamed El-Erian, head of the $30-billion Harvard Endowment, is working to make Harvard’s investment side more accessible to the rest of the university, reports The New York Times.

After his predecessor, Jack Meyer, left Harvard last year, frustrated with criticism over the multimillion-dollar pay packages for endowment managers—Mr. Meyer himself made $6-million in fiscal 2005—Mr. El-Erian stepped in from the corporate world to take over the world’s largest university endowment.

Most of Harvard’s money is still managed in-house, and the money managers still earn much larger paychecks than professors, but Mr. El-Erian wants to break down the divide between academe and investment.

“Mohamed makes it an active part of his itinerary” to visit with administrators, says Elizabeth Mora, Harvard’s vice president for finance. Before he took over, she says, “it was not the culture of the place to be as integrated with the university.”

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