Lisa Danzig named Rockefeller University's chief investment officer

Lisa Danzig, director of investments at Rockefeller University, has been appointed vice president and chief investment officer effective July 1, President Paul Nurse has announced. Danzig, who joined the university’s Office of Investments in December 2000, will assume responsibility for managing the university’s $1.5 billion in endowment assets and will fill the position to be vacated by Carol Einiger. Einiger, who is stepping down on June 30 to launch an investment advisory business, will serve as senior advisor to the endowment for the next several months.

Since joining Rockefeller, Danzig has had primary responsibility for the university’s private investment portfolio, including venture capital, buyout and real estate funds, which account for 25 percent of the university’s endowment. She has also played a major role in asset allocation and in the management of the university’s long equity, long/short equity, event-driven and fixed income portfolios.

Danzig, 46, began her career at Standard & Poor’s in 1985 as a rating analyst responsible for assessing the creditworthiness of bond issues sold by educational and municipal issuers. Over 14 years at S&P, she advanced to become director and sector leader of the Higher Education/Nonprofit Credit Analysis Group, responsible for assigning bond ratings and providing advice to nonprofit institutions seeking to borrow funds in capital markets. She has a B.A. in human biology from Brown University and an M.B.A. from New York University.

“More than 30 percent of our annual operating budget is provided by the endowment, so the management of those assets is of critical importance to our ability to pursue the highest quality science,” says Nurse. “We are fortunate to have in Lisa someone who has spent nearly two decades analyzing the portfolios of educational and nonprofit institutions and who is a very experienced investment manager.”

“Carol established Rockefeller’s investments office in 1996, and under her leadership the endowment has generated outstanding returns, surpassing the median endowment/foundation return by an average 500 basis points per year; there’s no question that she is leaving enormous shoes for me to fill,” Danzig says. “My goal is to make the transition as seamless as possible and to build on her tremendous success.

“I’m excited and honored to be taking on this role and I feel privileged to be a part of the Rockefeller community, where I can help support the significant scientific work done on campus,” Danzig adds.

“Lisa has made an enormous contribution to our performance during the last five years,” Einiger says. “She will bring tremendous experience, judgment and a new perspective to the oversight of the endowment, and I’m delighted that she has been named my successor.”

Danzig, who grew up in Savannah, Georgia, has lived in New York City since 1983, and has her home on the Upper West Side with her husband, Franklin Minerva, and three children.

The Rockefeller University was founded in 1901 by John D. Rockefeller as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research – the nation’s first biomedical research institution. Since its founding, Rockefeller University has been the site of many important scientific breakthroughs. Rockefeller scientists, for example, established that DNA is the chemical basis of heredity, discovered blood groups, showed that viruses can cause cancer, founded the modern field of cell biology, worked out the structure of antibodies, developed methadone maintenance for people addicted to heroin, devised the AIDS “cocktail” drug therapy, and identified the weight-regulating hormone leptin. Twenty-three winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and in Physiology or Medicine are associated with the university.