# Howard University Retirement Trust Howard University Retirement Trust is a Pension Fund based in Washington, United States. ## Overview - **Organization type:** Pension Fund - **Headquarters:** Washington, United States - **Region:** North America - **Address:** Washington, DC, United States - **Founded:** 1976 - **Assets under management:** Undisclosed - **Website:** hr.howard.edu ## Regulatory record - **Reports private funds:** No ## About The Howard University Retirement Trust operates as the pension arm of Howard University's investment office, responsible for the retirement plan assets of eligible university employees. Frank Bello, who serves as Associate Vice President, Chief Investment Officer and Treasurer, manages both the university's endowment and its retirement plan pools. The trust is a non-contributory, single-employer defined-contribution plan, meaning the university, not the employee, funds the benefit — a rare structure that makes the trust's allocation decisions a direct reflection of institutional liability management rather than individual participant direction. The trust administers 403(b) and 457(b) tax-advantaged retirement savings vehicles. Investment oversight mirrors the endowment's governance: the Board of Trustees, chaired by Leslie D. Hale (CEO of RLJ Lodging Trust) and vice-chaired by Mark A. L. Mason (CFO of Citi), sets policy. Day-to-day allocation rests with the investment office under Bello. While specific asset-class weights are not public, university pension trusts of this scale typically deploy across public equities, fixed income, private equity, real assets, and hedge fund strategies, often through commingled vehicles and separate accounts managed by external managers. The trust does not publish individual manager rosters or direct co-investment activity. Team scale is not disclosed. The investment office operates from the university's Washington, D.C. campus. In a governance shift, Rebecca Vazquez-Skillings joins as Senior VP and CFO effective July 1, 2025, replacing Interim CFO Karol Kain Gray. Separately, Wayne A. I. Frederick transitioned from President to President Emeritus and Interim President, signaling leadership flux that institutional allocators track for its potential to reshuffle board-level investment committee composition. Howard participates in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, a professional network that occasionally serves as a soft pipeline for manager introductions, though the trust itself does not market itself as sourcing through networks. The trust's structural differentiator is its position inside Howard University — a private, federally chartered HBCU whose $1 billion-plus endowment (per Howard University, 2024) places it among the largest HBCU asset pools in the United States. The dual CIO-plus-Treasurer mandate held by Bello means asset allocation and liquidity management sit under one roof, a concentration rare among similarly sized university pension trusts where treasury functions typically report through a separate CFO-controlled silo. This unified structure allows the investment office to treat the pension trust's liquidity profile as part of a holistic university balance-sheet view, rather than as an isolated participant-directed plan, giving Bello latitude to lean into illiquid alternatives in ways that pure defined-contribution plans carved out of university treasuries often cannot. ## People - Frank Bello — AVP, Chief Investment Officer, and Treasurer - Rebecca Vazquez-Skillings — Senior VP and CFO (incoming July 1, 2025) - Leslie D. Hale — Chair, Board of Trustees - Mark A. L. Mason — Vice Chair, Board of Trustees ## Questions ### Who runs investment decisions for the Howard University Retirement Trust? Frank Bello, Associate Vice President, Chief Investment Officer, and Treasurer at Howard University, oversees the retirement trust's invested assets alongside the university's endowment. He reports through university administration and to the Board of Trustees, whose investment committee includes Chair Leslie D. Hale (CEO of RLJ Lodging Trust). Day-to-day manager selection and allocation decisions sit with Bello's investment office. ### How is the Howard University Retirement Trust different from a typical corporate pension plan? The trust is a non-contributory defined-contribution plan for university employees, meaning Howard University funds contributions on behalf of eligible participants rather than deducting from salaries. It offers 403(b) and 457(b) tax-advantaged savings vehicles. This employer-funded DC structure means the trust's allocation policy reflects institutional liability management rather than a menu of participant-directed options. ### Does the trust disclose its asset allocation or external managers? No. Howard University does not publish a breakdown of trust-level allocations or name the external asset managers it retains. The university's overall endowment and pension assets are pooled for investment-office oversight, but individual vehicle-level or manager-level detail is not made public. ### How does governance of the trust relate to Howard University's broader finances? Frank Bello holds a combined CIO-plus-Treasurer mandate, which means retirement plan assets and the university's operating liquidity sit under a single investment office. The Board of Trustees — chaired by Leslie D. Hale and vice-chaired by Mark A. L. Mason, CFO of Citi — provides fiduciary oversight across both pools. This concentration is less common among university pension trusts, where treasury and investment functions are often separated. ## Related profiles - [Howard Gilman Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/howard-gilman-foundation) - [HowBuy Wealth Management](https://altss.com/profile/howbuy-wealth-management) --- Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/howard-university-retirement-trust Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology