In this episode of The First Close, we interview Charmel Maynard, chief investment officer of the University of Miami, a private university in Coral Gables, Florida, where he has worked since 2016. Charmel leads the university’s efforts to invest assets, including endowment and pension funds. He is also responsible for the university’s capital structure, including liquidity and debt issuances, treasury, and cash management.
After arriving in Miami, Charmel built the university’s private equity and venture capital portfolios from the ground up. His team’s “extreme long-term view” means that they work to ensure that they have access and exposure to various asset classes and stages. Charmel’s job is to make sure the University of Miami endowment and pension have diverse and balanced portfolios.
For Charmel and his team, diversification not only means having a balanced portfolio, but also investing in diverse managers. The university has set a target to reach 13% manager diversity by May 2022, and to more than double their investments in African-American owned firms to reach 50%. Under Charmel’s leadership, the University of Miami is taking important steps not only to acknowledge diversity as a competitive advantage, but also to engage in the more important work, as Charmel describes it, of putting numbers and targets on paper.
In this episode of The First Close, we cover:
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Charmel’s unique perspective as an institutional limited partner
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How Charmel and his team at the University of Miami think about asset allocation
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What matters most when evaluating venture capital managers
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Charmel’s proactive approach to aligning the university’s investment strategy with their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals
Listen to our interview with Charmel by streaming The First Close on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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