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Mount Saint Mary's University
Ann McElaney-Johnson leads the Mount Saint Mary's endowment, an estimated $194M pool backing buyout, venture, and natural resources from its Los Angeles...
Mount Saint Mary's University
Mount Saint Mary's University was founded in 1925 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet as a Catholic women's college in Los Angeles. Today it operates two historic campuses — Chalon in Brentwood and Doheny near downtown — and serves undergraduates alongside co-educational graduate and online programs. The university's president since 2011, Ann McElaney-Johnson, also chairs the Women's College Coalition, underscoring the institution's advocacy role within women's higher education. The endowment's strategy spans buyout, growth equity, early-stage venture, fund of funds, natural resources, and turnaround mandates. The mix skews toward fund commitments but includes direct deals; known portfolio positions include early-stage and seed-stage venture. Geographic exposure is primarily US, with the university's two Los Angeles campuses and a real estate footprint that includes a Hollywood studio and a birthplace site in Bas-en-Basset, France. In 2020, MacKenzie Scott made a $15 million transformative gift to the university (per MacKenzie Scott, 2020), a liquidity event that likely reshaped near-term deployment pacing. The endowment is an estimated $194M pool (Altss estimate). The university maintains a board of advisors that includes James Sarni, managing director at Payden & Rygel, suggesting institutional relationships that may influence manager selection. Adjacent vehicles include the university's own philanthropic foundation, which received Scott's gift, and an art collection with its own gallery on the Chalon campus. In 2026, the university announced a new Doctor of Nursing Practice program, reflecting an operating-company health sciences focus that could inform future endowment co-investment or LP relationships in digital health and healthcare services. The endowment's structural differentiator is its pairing of a women's college mission with an investment program that has historically included male-dominated asset classes like natural resources and a willingness to commit as both a fund LP and direct co-investor. This hybrid posture, allied with operational ties to a religious order and Los Angeles civic networks, gives its allocation process a character distinct from secular co-ed university endowments of similar size.
General information
Firm type
Endowment / Foundation
Year founded
1925
AUM
194 (Altss estimate)
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Los Angeles
Corporate office
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Principals
Ann McElaney-Johnson
President
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Mount Saint Mary's University?
Investment oversight resides with the university's board of trustees and its investment committee. While specific committee members are not publicly listed, MacKenzie Scott's $15 million gift in 2020 (per MacKenzie Scott, 2020) and board advisor James Sarni's presence suggest the process leans on institutional relationships and external manager expertise. The president, Ann McElaney-Johnson, provides executive leadership but daily allocation is likely delegated to staff or an outsourced chief investment officer.
How does Mount Saint Mary's endowment source its fund managers?
The endowment's strategy includes fund of funds commitments, implying it accesses managers through intermediary vehicles as well as direct LP allocations. Board ties to Los Angeles-based investment professionals, including Payden & Rygel's James Sarni, likely create a local sourcing pipeline. Membership in the Women's College Coalition and Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities may surface additional manager relationships through peer CIO networks.
Does Mount Saint Mary's invest directly or only through funds?
The endowment uses a hybrid model. Its stated strategy covers fund of funds, direct buyout, growth equity, early-stage venture (including seed), and natural resources. This suggests a mix of direct investments, potentially co-investments alongside existing GPs, and traditional LP positions in pooled funds.
What is Mount Saint Mary's relationship to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet?
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet founded the university in 1925 and remain its sponsoring religious order. The university's Chalon campus is named for the order's motherhouse in France. The relationship is structural — the sisters' charism shapes the university's mission — but investment decisions appear managed by the university's board and investment committee, not the order directly.
Did the MacKenzie Scott gift change the endowment's investment approach?
The $15 million gift in 2020 (per MacKenzie Scott, 2020) added significant liquidity to a historically modest endowment pool. Scott's unrestricted gifts often lead recipient institutions to accelerate spending or alter asset allocation; Mount Saint Mary's has not disclosed specific allocation shifts tied to the gift, but the 2026 rollout of a Doctor of Nursing Practice program suggests the university is investing in operating-company scale, which may influence endowment pacing or liquidity requirements.
What real assets does Mount Saint Mary's own outside its endowment portfolio?
Beyond the endowment fund, the university holds two Los Angeles campuses (Chalon and Doheny), a Hollywood studio property, and a residential birthplace site for Mother St. John Fontbonne in Bas-en-Basset, France. It also houses the José Drudis-Biada Art Gallery Collection on the Chalon campus. These assets are held for educational and cultural purposes, not as part of an investment portfolio.
How is Mount Saint Mary's endowment different from a typical university endowment?
It combines a women's undergraduate college mission with an investment program that includes natural resources and a fund-of-funds layer — a breadth of asset classes unusual for an endowment of its size. Its Los Angeles location and Catholic identity also create a sourcing overlap between local entertainment, healthcare, and faith-based manager networks that a secular East Coast college endowment would not access.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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