# Arlington County Employees' Retirement System

Arlington County Employees' Retirement System is a Pension Fund based in Arlington, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Pension Fund
- **Headquarters:** Arlington, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Arlington, VA, United States
- **Founded:** 1953
- **Assets under management:** $3.2B (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** arlingtonva.us
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/arlington-county-government

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Arlington County Employees' Retirement System was created in 1953 to provide retirement, survivor, and disability benefits for substantially all county employees. Susie Ardeshir leads the plan as Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer, managing the long-term capital of one of the most affluent counties in the United States. The system operates under a board of trustees led by President Jonathan C. Kinney, with the administrative investment function sitting directly with Ardeshir and her team rather than being fully outsourced to consultants. The plan deploys capital across a broad private-markets toolkit. Confirmed strategies listed in its investment policy include venture capital, growth equity, buyout, distressed debt, mezzanine, special situations, and natural resources. The system participates through a mix of primary fund commitments, fund-of-funds allocations, and direct co-investments. Real asset exposure covers both traditional real estate and infrastructure, a posture that reflects a decades-long movement by mature public plans toward illiquid alpha. Deep partnership with organizations like NCPERS and the Government Finance Officers Association supports the peer-to-peer knowledge sharing that shapes its commitments. The system recently surpassed the $3B threshold, a scale that gives its investment team meaningful access to mid-market managers and select direct opportunities. In September 2023, the board approved an increased allocation to private credit, signaling appetite for floating-rate and special-situations strategies in a higher-rate environment. The office operates from Arlington, Virginia, with no additional investment outpost. The plan's real differentiator is structural rather than stylistic. As a single-employer defined benefit plan covering the workforce of a single high-income county, its flow of contributions and liabilities is unusually stable. This demographic insulation allows it to tolerate illiquidity that multi-employer or state-level peers often avoid, and it runs a lean internal team that relies on carefully selected external partnerships rather than building a large in-house direct investing machine.

## Sectors

- Private Credit
- Secondaries & Special Situations
- Real Estate
- Infrastructure
- Natural Resources

## People

- Susie Ardeshir — Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer

## Questions

### Does the plan run in-house direct investments or rely on fund commitments?

It operates a hybrid model. The majority of committed capital goes into primary fund commitments and fund-of-funds structures, but the team also executes direct co-investments alongside trusted managers. Real assets, including real estate and infrastructure, are held through both direct interests and pooled vehicles. The internal investment team is too lean to run a purely direct model, so external partnerships remain the dominant path.

### What is the governance structure for investment decisions?

A board of trustees, currently led by President Jonathan C. Kinney, governs the plan. Susie Ardeshir serves as Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer, holding day-to-day responsibility for manager selection, asset allocation, and portfolio construction. The board retains approval authority over large commitments and policy changes, a standard public-pension governance model that separates fiduciary oversight from investment execution.

### How does its single-employer structure affect investment strategy?

Because the plan covers only Arlington County employees rather than a statewide or multi-employer pool, contribution flows and liability streams are tied to the fiscal health of a single affluent jurisdiction. This creates greater predictability on both the asset and liability sides, allowing the system to take more illiquidity risk than a less stable plan. The board has historically used that flexibility to commit higher percentages to private markets than some peer systems.

### Which sectors does the system explicitly avoid?

No explicit exclusion list has been published, and the system does not appear to operate under statutory investment prohibitions beyond standard public pension restrictions on concentrated risk. Observers should assume a broad investable mandate, with sector exposure determined by underlying manager selection rather than top-down divestment policies.

## Related profiles

- [University of Colorado Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/university-of-colorado-foundation)
- [City of Tampa Fire & Police Pension](https://altss.com/profile/city-of-tampa)

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Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/arlington-county-employees-retirement-system

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