There’s a famous sports adage on how great defenses win championships, but can defensive layers be efficiently applied to pension plans that have close to $128 billion in AUM and provide secure retirement benefits to 850,000 participants?

In addition to positioning your defense, how can CIOs reduce drawdown risk while navigating investment board politics, innovation goals, and uncovering longer-term sources of strategic alpha? ​In our first episode of 2026 for the Improving Alpha podcast, we uncovered allocation strategies for the Employees’ Retirement System of Hawaii.

This time, we traveled ~5,000 miles to welcome Andrew Junkin, Chief Investment Officer of the Virginia Retirement System (VRS). Host, Michael Oliver Weinberg, speaks with Andrew about his journey from investment consulting to moving east of the Mississippi, where he took on the CIO role at the State of Rhode Island during COVID, before landing at VRS.

Key takeaways from Andrew’s discussion include:

• Why, after 150 nights on the consulting road, did Andrew look for a career change?
• How does Andrew balance the Code of Virginia rules in avoiding large drawdowns by adding layers of defense to the portfolio?
• Can good investment decisions be freed up from political perspectives, and how does that shape governance of the $128BN fund?
• Does cash on hand actually create drag in asset owner portfolios, or does it help liquidity, avoiding the ‘shaking of couch cushions to fund capital calls and more?
• With equity prices and valuations at all-time highs, and spreads tightening, are there still investment opportunities out there to take advantage of for your beneficiaries?
• Red flags on asset gathering mode by fund managers, and flipping the right switches on investment partnerships.
• Why the Chief Investment title shouldn’t be about picking investments, but rather focus on machine building for the future.
• And more!

Connect with Andrew Junkin:

• LinkedIn: Andrew Junkin
• Website: Virginia Retirement System

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg:

• Michael Oliver Weinberg
• Vidrio

About Our Guest:

Andrew Junkin serves as the Chief Investment Officer of the Virginia Retirement System where he manages and oversees the investment program for the fund, valued at more than $100 billion. The fund serves approximately 773,000 active members, retirees and beneficiaries. VRS covers teachers, state employees and most employees of the Commonwealth’s counties, cities, towns and political subdivisions.

Previously, Junkin served as the Chief Investment Officer for the State of Rhode Island’s pension plan, defined contribution and 529 plans, as well as cash and operating funds and debt management program.

Prior to his public fund experience with Rhode Island, he worked at Wilshire Associates in California and Colorado, where he served in various capacities, including Managing Director and President from 2015 to 2020. During his tenure, Junkin also served as the Lead Consultant for a $400 billion pension plan and was responsible for driving overall strategy, asset allocation, risk management, implementation and sourcing new strategies.

From 1995 to 2005, Junkin was the President of Asset Services Company in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where he served as Lead Consultant for family office and foundation clients.

Junkin holds a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School and a bachelor’s degree in Business from Oklahoma City University.

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

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​Can a generalist provide a much broader view of the institutional markets and uncover things that so-called experts miss? Can the sins of Wall Street be traced back to a genuine lack of perspective and ineffective communication when a crisis arises? These are some of the questions and answers that we’ll uncover in our latest episode of the Improving Alpha podcast.

​For this episode, we welcome Aswath Damodaran, Kerschner Family Chair and Finance Education Professor, NYU Stern. Aswath will take the audience through his perspectives on how to address some of the challenges posed by AI, including the Damdaran Bot, the ESG scam, the Mag 7, and more.

Additional highlights include:

• Why those in active investing shouldn’t be concerned about the introduction of AI, and the threat that it could take this industry to the cleaners.
• The challenge of ESG and why those who write about it may be hiding an agenda to make it look better than what it actually is today.
• So what if there’s an AI bubble? Isn’t overconfidence and a high degree of optimism going to be corrected by the markets?
• Crypto currencies – are they a currency or collectible, and what perspectives should you take on them for 2026.
• The gaming of quarterly reporting and potential solutions for allocators paying attention to these reports.
• And more.

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg:

• Michael Oliver Weinberg
• Vidrio

Connect with Aswath Damodaran:

• LinkedIn: Aswath Damodaran
• Website: Aswath Damodaran
• Blog: Musings on Markets
• YouTube: Aswath Damodaran

About Our Guest:

Aswath Damodaran holds the Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education and is Professor of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business. Before coming to Stern, he also lectured in Finance at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Damodaran received a B.A. in Accounting from Madras University and a postgraduate diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management. He earned an M.B.A. (1981) and then Ph.D. (1985), both in Finance, from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Professor Damodaran’s contributions to the field of Finance have been recognized many times over. He has been the recipient of Giblin, Glucksman, and Heyman Fellowships, a David Margolis Teaching Excellence Fellowship, and the Richard L. Rosenthal Award for Innovation in Investment Management and Corporate Finance.

His skill and enthusiasm in the classroom garnered him the Schools of Business Excellence in Teaching Award in 1988, and the Distinguished Teaching award from NYU in 1990. His student accolades are no less impressive: he has been voted “Professor of the Year” by the graduating M.B.A. class nine times during his career at NYU.

In addition to myriad publications in academic journals, Professor Damodaran is the author of several highly-regarded and widely-used academic texts on Valuation, Corporate Finance, and Investment Management.

Professor Damodaran currently teaches Corporate Finance and Valuation to the MBAs, and his interests lie in disentangling value drivers and understanding market pricing and behavior.

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

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Institutional investors continually seek top-tier managers, relying on insights, industry signals, and rigorous due diligence led by expert portfolio teams before committing any capital. While these preliminary drivers are widely adopted and can often contribute 100 to 300 basis points above relevant benchmarks, the pursuit of above-average alpha remains relentless. Could convex alternative investments help add alpha to a university, library, hospital, pension, or endowment system?

The Improving Alpha podcast is pleased to welcome Dave Morehead, CIO, Baylor University. In this episode, Michael Oliver Weinberg chats with Dave about his journey in the world of marketable investments, while sharing allocator insights that have defined his 15-year tenure managing Baylor University’s endowment.

Key takeaways from Dave’s discussion include:

• What was the evolution of Baylor’s endowment, now valued at $2.3Bn, coming out of the global financial crisis and the steps needed to stabilize its future?
• Why is there less focus on a hard percentage return target for Baylor and more emphasis placed on strategic internal goals?
• Tweaking the traditional diversification strategies that many endowments use today in order to diversify the means by which alpha is created.
• How data center and marina investments play a role in Baylor’s convexity investment approach.
• Baylor’s triangulation approach in combining the quantitative with qualitative manager checks and character assessments in order to more effectively avoid red flags in investing.
• Why the institutional investment market can kneecap you when you make assumptions on manager purity and humility prior to an allocation decision.
• Lessons learned about portfolio risk, organizational structure, and mentoring the next generation of investment professionals.
• And more.

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg:

• Michael Oliver Weinberg
• Vidrio

Connect with Dave Morehead:

• LinkedIn: Dave Morehead
• Baylor University

About Our Guest:

Dave Morehead joined the Baylor University Office of Investments in 2011 and currently serves as the Chief Investment Officer. From 2019-2024, Mr. Morehead co-taught the Large Cap and Small Cap practicum classes at Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business. Previously, he was a senior portfolio manager at Lotsoff Capital Management, where he managed securities across the corporate capital structure, and a partner at Highview Capital Management, where he focused on public and private energy investments.

Prior to this, he was a portfolio manager at Ritchie Capital Management, responsible for a generalist corporate relative value and distressed portfolio and spent time performing equity research on the transportation/logistics and specialty retail sectors at William Blair & Company.

Mr. Morehead also held roles at Bank of America, where he was responsible for the risk management of the bank’s interest rate derivatives desk, and First Trust Advisors, where he advised community banks on their investment portfolios.

Dave graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College and earned his MBA in finance and entrepreneurship with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

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​Many talented endowment CIOs evolve from engineering backgrounds, consultancies, and other disciplines. These past experiences allow CIOs to transform investment office teams, broadening the search for alpha through improved portfolio construction, balancing liquidity concerns, outpacing endowment peers, and creating an environment where investment staff are valued for their continued contributions.

On the latest Improving Alpha podcast, Michael Oliver Weinberg is joined by Jim Bethea, CFA, CAIA, Chief Investment Officer, West Virginia University Foundation.

By the time this episode airs, Jim will have been in the WVU Foundation role for only a few months, but the insights that he provides from his time at RVK Consulting, the University of Iowa Center for Advancement, and now the WVU Foundation are priceless for institutional asset owners.

Key takeaways from Jim Bethea’s discussion with Michael include:

• What were the lightbulb moments that made Jim decide to make a switch to endowment portfolio management?
• When sitting in the CIO seat at a major endowment, why should you look less at inflation and more towards fee spending and risk tolerance? Risk in PR, liquidity, etc.
• What is Jim’s mindset when the campus needs capital, and how to navigate that when considering future fiscal year projections?
• Staff buy-in and how that helps to accelerate an investment edge or interest level across the team on the search for alpha across various asset classes. More importantly, if there isn’t an edge in a given asset class, can beta be leveraged to generate median returns?
• Why having an ESG policy might be hurting your approach to managing total portfolio returns.
• How AI and future innovations in technology will be shaping his portfolio allocations.
• Red flags in VC fund managers and why you should be worried as an endowment CIO if these managers start touting 3X gains.
• Reshoring efforts, incremental capital destination with GPs, retaining staff, and more!

Resources:

• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg:

• Michael Oliver Weinberg
• Vidrio

Connect with Jim Bethea:

• LinkedIn: Jim Bethea
• West Virginia University Foundation

About Our Guest:

Jim Bethea is the Chief Investment Officer of the West Virginia University Foundation. He oversees the management of the Foundation’s investment portfolio, bringing decades of experience in institutional investing, manager research, and portfolio construction. Prior to joining WVU, he served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer at the University of Iowa Center for Advancement, where he led investment strategy and expanded the endowment’s portfolio diversification.

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

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Can prior career opportunities help you discover your true potential in institutional investing even if they’re not related to the finance sector? Maybe it reveals that ideal ‘a-ha’ moment that sets your future course.

In our latest episode of the Improving Alpha podcast, we welcome Devana Cohen, Chief Investment Officer of the United Jewish Appeal Federation, (UJA) to discuss her three-pronged mission approach, which manages $2 billion in assets. Listen in as Devana shares her journey from modeling electrons flowing through silicon as a semiconductor R&D analyst to careers in finance at The Ford Foundation, California Endowment, and then landing at the UJA.

Host Michael Oliver Weinberg and Devana Cohen cover the following key takeaways and more:

• How are current geopolitics impacting the UJA’s mission today.
• The prevailing thoughts on value investing strategies at the UJA and how Devana adds downside protection to the portfolio.
• The engineering mindset and how her process-oriented approach helps in manager selection, especially when thinking about ESG.
• Given the recent U.S. administration changes, how does the UJA view ESG investments, like carbon capture and sequestration.
• Does distressed credit offer attractive yields for the UJA portfolio today, and could Europe offer some unique options.
• Could there be less demand for venture capital in the future which will level the playing field and provide more early-stage opportunities.
• Real thoughts on co-portfolio managers and the challenges that exist with this model.
• And more!

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg:

• Michael Oliver Weinberg
• Vidrio

Connect with Devana Cohen:

• LinkedIn: Devana Cohen
• UJA-Federation of New York

About Our Guest:

Devana Cohen is the Chief Investment Officer for the UJA-Federation of New York’s Endowment and Retirement Plans. Before joining UJA-Federation of New York in 2013, Ms. Cohen spent five years managing public market investments at the Ford Foundation and The California Endowment. Ms. Cohen was an Asset-Liability Manager at Toyota Motor Sales, where she also served as a member of the investment team that managed the pension plan assets. Before starting a career in investments, she was a Design Engineer developing semiconductor devices for International Rectifier. Ms. Cohen graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with dual BS degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, specializing in Finance and Entrepreneurial Studies. Ms. Cohen is a CFA charterholder.

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

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