Any recommendations? I have a couple in mind to read before going in to meet with anybody, but I would definitely appreciate your input.
One of the standards is: Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment by David Swensen
About half a year ago, I had briefly contemplated working for an endowment as a post-MBA career, and collected some information about sources along the way. First, I agree with LBSpaladin – most people would say that the Swensen book is a “must have.” Recently, I was also made aware of another good title called “Foundation and Endowment Investing” by Kochard and Rittereiser. This suggestion came by way of fellow AF user Onegin. Lastly, the Yale endowment publishes annual reports with some good information on how endowments work and what their investment philosophy is. king_kong provided this reading recommendation. Hope this helps!
^hahah, are you afraid that goat of god will accuse you of plagiarism?? 
Nope, though I’m petrified he might accuse me of being an “authority” Anyway, endowments aren’t my expertise but hopefully those other guys will see this thread and post their thoughts
i did investment consulting (which primarily caters to endowments, nonprofits and such), dabble in it now, and know recent MBAs finally attracted to the practice. swensen is the pioneer of modern endowment management so swensen’s book and the yale investment office’s annual reports are the bible. having said that, you should also read the many online articles critiquing the yale model in light of the crisis’ aftermath and its negative effect on the harvard and yale endowments.
Thanks, this is all very helpful. Did anyone ever take a look at “The Ivy Portfolio”. I’ve seen good reviews, but seems like just more of the same.
Ivy Portfolio is about how to do an endowment-style investment with ETFs and mostly liquid stuff. There is some interesting tactical trading stuff in it too. It might be considered “light” for an endowment gig, though. Agree with the others, that Swensen is the Bible on this topic. Finding out the criticisms of his method is also pretty useful.
Thanks. I picked up Pioneering Portfolio Management and am flying through it (great read!), also helps to refresh some of the endowment portions of the L3 curriculum. Does anybody have any specific recommendation on critiques of Swensen or the “Yale Model”? I found the below article which gives some background, but any comprehensive critique would be very beneficial. http://www.econ.puc-rio.br/mgarcia/Seminario/textos_preliminares/Cash%20Me%20If%20You%20Can.pdf Thanks again for the comments.
Hmmmm…I never thought about endowment management as a career. I’m curious to know what has attracted people to the industry (vs. say mutual funds, hedge funds, banking, etc)? Does anyone know what type of comp you can earn?
DirtyZ, eureka, and anyone else that wants additional detail on the industry feel free to post your email address and I will shoot you an email and answer any questions you may have. I already wrote out a detailed email to numi about it a few months ago so I can copy and paste that in - a lot of it has been covered in this thread but there could be some other useful information.
Ron Jeremy’s Extenze are good for endowment management…and there’s always Enzyte!