Georgetown University Retirement Plan

Georgetown University Retirement Plan

The Georgetown University Retirement Plan operates alongside — but entirely separately from — the university's main endowment. Its investment committee draws on formidable external expertise, including Blackstone's Global Head of Private Equity Joseph Baratta, RockCreek founder Afsaneh Beschloss, and former KKR executive Suzanne Donohoe. The plan runs a notably expansive private-markets mandate for a retirement pool its size, reaching across buyout, venture, distressed debt, mezzanine, growth equity, and natural resources. The strategy leans heavily on fund commitments and fund-of-funds structures, deploying across a wide stage spectrum from seed and early-stage venture through late-stage expansion and buyout. The plan's natural-resources sleeve and distressed-debt allocation give it a posture that more closely resembles an endowment than a typical corporate retirement plan. Geographic diversification includes exposure to global infrastructure holdings and assets developed through Georgetown's international campus presence, including its facility in Doha, Qatar. Agatone manages the plan alongside a board stacked with institutional heavyweights — a governance structure that signals the university's intent to run the retirement pool with endowment-grade sophistication. The plan's real-asset footprint extends beyond securities to include direct interests in Washington, DC commercial properties and a faculty housing portfolio. No recent publicly disclosed fund closes or portfolio exits have been reported in the last 24 months. The plan's structural differentiator is its governance: a retirement committee that looks like an endowment investment board. The presence of Baratta, Beschloss, and Donohoe — all sitting at the top of private-markets firms — gives Georgetown's retirement plan access pathways and due-diligence capacity that most peer plans cannot replicate. This board composition, paired with Agatone's CIO role, creates an unusual hybrid of fiduciary discipline and institutional-grade sourcing.