Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Retirement Plan

Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Retirement Plan

The Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Retirement Plan is the employee pension vehicle for Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, the primary teaching affiliate of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Based in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood, the system encompasses flagship institutions including Prentice Women's Hospital, Feinberg Pavilion, and Galter Pavilion. The plan's governance intersects with the Northwestern Memorial Foundation and a board chaired by Carol Bernick, CEO of Polished Nickel Capital Management, linking it to the broader family-office and wealth-management community in Chicago. The plan maintains an alternative investment portfolio with a specific allocation to venture capital strategies. While precise asset-class weights and total plan assets remain undisclosed, its governance reflects deep ties to Chicago's financial infrastructure. Northern Trust Wealth Management president Jason Tyler serves on the Northwestern Memorial Healthcare Foundation board, and William Brodsky, former chairman and CEO of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, chaired the investment committee for 14 years. These relationships suggest a manager-selection leaning toward established, large-cap venture and growth-equity firms rather than niche emerging managers. The plan operates from the health system's Chicago headquarters, with all its commercial and clinical real estate concentrated in the Streeterville corridor. Board and executive leadership participate in the Economic Club of Chicago, the Commercial Club of Chicago, and the Executives' Club of Chicago — civic networks that align the plan with other institutional allocators in the region. The retirement plan does not appear to separately brand its investment operations or maintain a dedicated public-facing investment team page, which is typical for a corporate D.B. structure embedded within a larger operating entity. No standalone foundation or charitable trust linked to the plan has been publicly identified as managing program-related investments separately from the parent's philanthropic arm, the Northwestern Memorial Foundation. The plan's structural differentiator lies in its unconventional governance backdrop. A defined-benefit corporate plan attached to an academic medical center draws its oversight not from a standalone pension board but from a health-system board populated by active family-office principals and senior financial-services executives. That blend produces an investment committee likely operating more like a family-office allocation committee than a bureaucratic public pension board — especially given Brodsky's tenure and the tight overlap with Northern Trust's senior leadership.