(New York, October 18, 2017)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Lauren A. Meserve has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. She will assume the role held by Suzanne Brenner, who is leaving the Museum after 18 years to take a position as Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at Brown Brothers Harriman.
Ms. Meserve joined the Museum's investment team in 2002 and was named Chief Investment Officer alongside Ms. Brenner in 2014. She will continue to oversee the management of the Museum's $3.1 billion investment portfolio, including asset allocation, investment manager selection, and risk management.
"Lauren has been successfully managing the Museum's investment efforts together with Suzanne Brenner for many years," said Daniel H. Weiss in making the announcement. "And within that time the Museum's endowment has performed extremely well, consistently seeing returns in the top quartile. I have no doubt that Lauren will continue to maintain the Museum's exceptional standards for its investments."
Mr. Weiss added, "Suzanne Brenner has been a superb colleague and she has expertly led the Museum's investments as the group's Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer. We are proud of her accomplishments and wish her the best as she pursues this exciting new career opportunity."
Prior to joining the Museum, Ms. Meserve worked at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where she assisted in the management of the Foundation's endowment, collaborated on The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (Bowen and Bok) and The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values (Bowen and Shulman), and coordinated projects for Artstor. Ms. Meserve began her career at the Yale University Investments Office, where she worked on investment manager selection, endowment asset allocation and spending policies, and Yale's ethical investment policy.
Ms. Meserve has a master's degree in public policy with a Certificate in Demography from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (2001) and a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Yale University (1993). She serves on the board of several non-profits, including the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Population Council, and American Friends of the National Gallery, London.
Suzanne Brenner has been the Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of The Metropolitan Museum of Art since 2014. She joined the Museum in 1999 as the Associate Treasurer before being promoted to Chief Investment Officer in 2007. Prior to working at the Museum, Ms. Brenner was the Director of Investments and Assistant Treasurer at The Rockefeller Foundation from 1996 to 1999, and worked as a consultant to several Louis Marx Jr. private equity companies from 1995 to 1996. She began her career at Ernst & Young, where she worked for eleven years.
Ms. Brenner has a Bachelor of Music degree from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree from the City University of New York at Queens College where she graduated summa cum laude. She is also a certified public accountant (CPA) and serves on the boards of the Sanford C. Bernstein Mutual Funds; the Emerita Counsel of 100 Women in Finance, an organization of over 10,000 professional women that is focused on education, leverage, and philanthropy; and several leading family trusts.
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October 18, 2017