Manager, Alpha Analytics and Portfolio Risk

About the Foundation

The John

D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation is one of the nation's largest independent foundations. The Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Mac Arthur invests in solving some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, including advancing global climate solutions, promoting local justice reform in the U.S., revitalizing local news, expanding who creates, uses, and benefits from artificial intelligence, and strengthening the well-being of Native communities.

In addition to the Mac Arthur Fellows Program and the global 100&Change competition, the Foundation continues its historic commitments to the role of journalism in a responsive democracy as well as the vitality of our headquarters city, Chicago. The Foundation also maintains offices in Nigeria and India.

The Investments team manages the John

D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation’s $9.6 billion investment portfolio. The portfolio is managed within a globally diversified, multi‑asset class framework with the objective of earning a 5% real return annually. It serves as the source of funds for the Foundation’s grant making and other organizational expenses.

The Manager, Portfolio Risk and Alpha Strategies, has primary responsibility for the day‑to‑day operation of the Foundation’s portfolio risk analytics, manager return and factor decomposition and portable α program. The Manager reports to the Deputy Chief Investment Officer. The Manager partners closely with the Deputy CIO on portfolio construction, risk‑aware decision‑making and the implementation of derivative‑based exposures. The Manager also serves as a senior technical leader for the team’s data, analytics and AI‑enabled workflows.

The Manager is expected to operate as a senior practitioner from day one. Over time, the Manager will grow into a broader portfolio leadership role that contributes to asset allocation, manager underwriting and Investment Committee dialogue.

• Run the day‑to‑day operation of the Foundation’s portable α program under the strategic oversight of the Deputy CIO, including interaction with the overlay manager, execution of derivatives trades to manage market exposure and ongoing oversight of the program’s performance and operations.
• Operate the Foundation’s portfolio risk management framework on a day‑to‑day basis, including monitoring of total market risk, downside exposure, factor exposures, currency exposures and portfolio resilience, working in partnership with the Deputy CIO.
• Lead the decomposition and analysis of external manager returns, including factor exposure analysis, performance attribution and alpha‑beta separation.
• Participate as a member of the Risk Committee.
• Develop conclusions from those analyses for use by the senior portfolio managers, the Deputy CIO and CIO.
• Manage the Foundation’s counter party risk on an ongoing basis, including monitoring, limit setting and reporting.
• Manage the Foundation’s portfolio of short‑term cash enhancement instruments.
• Participate in prospective manager presentations. Contribute to the underwriting of public equity and other marketable mandates as the role matures.
• Contribute to the Foundation’s annual asset allocation process, including capital markets assumptions, scenario work and portfolio construction analysis.
• Measure currency and factor exposure across the portfolio. Evaluate hedges for both public and private investments.
• Partner with the Operations team on the design of the Investments team’s data and analytics infrastructure, defining what the analytics need to show to support portfolio decisions and shaping the analytical content of reports, dashboards and configuration models.
• Maintain sufficient technical fluency in data architecture, ETL pipelines, and API‑based integrations across market data, accounting, custody, risk and manager data systems to engage Operations and external providers on design and implementation.
• Implement the Investments team’s AI agent roadmap as defined by the CIO, including integration with…