Institutional Investor is proud to recognize leaders within the allocator community for their outstanding contributions to portfolio development at the second annual AlphaEdge Recognition Dinner. Prior to the event, we sat down with Ning Wang, recognized in the category of Next Generation Recognitions.
Ning, Principal Investment Manager at the American Chemical Society, brings a wealth of experience and a versatile perspective to her role. Beginning her career in asset management, Ning cultivated her expertise across multiple asset classes over a decade, transitioning from a focused specialist to a well-rounded generalist. Her journey began in Private Equity at CPE (formerly CITIC PE) in Beijing, followed by a tenure as a quantitative investment researcher for fixed income and currency strategies at State Street Global Advisors in Boston, Massachusetts.
During her pursuit of the master's degree at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Ning was first introduced to the allocator world through an internship project at the Grove Street Advisors, a fund of fund specializing in buyouts and venture capital. Subsequently, she honed her manager selection skills at the World Bank pension team covering in public equity and private credit for six years. Joining American Chemical Society in 2023, Ning currently manages the endowment pools, the defined benefit pensions, and the defined contribution pensions across all asset classes.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the industry right now?
What worked in the past may not work in the future. A higher cost of capital will likely reshape many investment playbooks. Deals that depended on high financial leverage and multiple expansion that worked in the past may not work in the future. As professional allocators, our team keeps an open mind and continuously assesses if the strategies are well positioned for the next decade amidst decarbonization, digitalization, and deglobalization trends.
Another pressing challenge lies in the abundance of data and the inadequacy of tailored software solutions to our niche of the Investment Management community. The industry lacks software that is specifically designed for professional asset allocators, presenting an opportunity for enhancements in leveraging the available data. As an MIT graduate, I enjoy getting into the data. When I joined the World Bank pension team, besides the daily investment responsibilities as a Portfolio Manager, my two colleagues and I wrote over 30,000 lines of Python code to automate the entire investment process, from screening potential funds, monitoring existing investments, automating reporting, to calculating factor analysis and optimizing portfolio constructions that were all customized based on our investment processes and needs. Even though building those infrastructures required tons of upfront efforts, it has yielded considerable time savings down the road.
With the python code built, the reports that used to take a staff three days every month to complete, can now be generatedat the push of a button. On the private side I also created a Power BI dashboard that visualized the fund performance, benchmark to peers, and looked through the whole portfolio that helped us deep dive into the strategies and understand how the portfolio evolved. Compared to our counterparties – the asset managers – I think there are many ways that we as Asset Allocators can better utilize the data and further streamline the process.
What part of the portfolio are you most excited?
Like many allocators, we place great emphasis on diversification and emphasize seeking different types of risk premiums. The team is also exploring ways to use derivatives and to expand into Real Assets to protect the portfolio during inflationary environments.
A recent highlight for us has been the restructuring of the endowment pool, spearheaded by our senior executive team. ACS used to have multiple fragmented investment programs, each separately managed closer to a traditional 60/40 style. Consolidating them into one investment pool has allowed us to manage the capital more efficiently in an endowment model. The opportunity to build up this endowment pool from the ground up, from strategic asset allocation, portfolio construction to forging new relationships and deploying capital, is immensely exciting. Our allocation target is to allocate 50% of the capital to alternatives and private asset classes. In the most recent March committee meeting, the committee approved the 5% allocation to Real Assets, and the team plan to build up the Real Assets class starting from secondary funds and natural resources.
Our CIO, Jordan Levine, is very thoughtful at team building. We are all generalists in this small team, so we can be nimble and efficient, and can always think about the best place to deploy the next dollar, instead of being siloed by asset classes or geographies.
Who was your mentor and what made you go into your current job?
My first introduction to manager selection was from the Asset Management course taught by professor Randy Cohen at MIT Sloan School of Management. During the course, each week we had case studies about different funds and strategies, and many top fund managers came to our classroom to share with us their investment philosophy. The course was instrumental in shaping my career trajectory, thinking from a portfolio construction perspective, versus one specific stock or bond. Exposure to diverse investment strategies and engagements with fund managers ignited my passion for capital allocation.
I'm extremely fortunate to have had exceptional managers throughout my career, particularly our CIO, Jordan Levine, who besides being an experienced and thoughtful investor, is also an amazing leader and a great mentor to me. As I assume more managerial responsibilities, I always look up to him how I can be a good manager.
If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing today?
My inherent curiosity drives me towards exploration and diversity, characteristics that are mirrored in my role as a generalist allocator. I am always curious about unknowns and drawn to new experiences, whether it's trying out new sports or immersing myself in diverse cultures through travel.
When I am not traveling, I spend so much time in my garden. I used to be a “serial plant killer” pre-Covid. But during Covid, I suddenly found my green thumb. I love to be embraced by nature – and even though it’s very different from my daily work, it reminds me of investment: how to diversify and mitigate the risks. Similar to investment, I emphasize diversification when I build my garden. There are over 60 different kinds of flowers and vegetables in my small garden. How to protect them from different kinds of risks, bugs, disease, drought, as well as deer and rabbits are all very important for the final harvesting. Overall, eating what you grow organically is also very rewarding.
What’s one thing that would improve the way we do the industry?
Stepping up the efforts to recruit and retain young talent is extremely important for our industry. Many like me were unaware of the allocator role upon entering the workforce. I truly think this is the best job: I could do what I love to do, which is investment, and at the same time, make an impact. Fostering awareness and avenues for entry into this field is crucial for attracting diverse talent. This year when I was invited to be the speaker at the MIT Sloan School of Management’s commencement ceremony, I shared with the new graduates my career journey as an institutional investor. Together with other efforts, I hope we can bring more talents to this meaningful career.
Moreover, fostering stronger connections among LPs can enhance knowledge sharing and collaboration. The experiences and connections matter a lot in our industry. I found exchanging notes with peers and learning from each other extremely helpful, so I created a WhatsApp group to connect institutional investors in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia area. LPs frequently connect with each other in the group to conduct reference calls, help each other with recruiting, and organize Happy Hours!
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