University of Missouri

Tom Richards has served as Chief Investment Officer since 2019. He reports to the University of Missouri System president and ultimately to the Board of Curators, which retains formal approval authority for the investment policy statement and large commitments. Richards's team includes investment professionals located across multiple US cities.

The endowment maintains professional investment staff in Columbia, Missouri, and in satellite offices in Palo Alto, Cincinnati, Chicago, and New York. This unusual multi-city structure, built under CIO Tom Richards, allows the office to recruit investment talent from private-markets hubs and maintain closer proximity to general partners.

The endowment primarily commits to external private-equity, venture-capital, real-asset, and hedge-fund managers. In recent years, however, it has expanded its direct co-investment activity alongside existing GP relationships, a shift consistent with Richards's effort to reduce fee drag and gain more control over deployment pacing.

The portfolio spans private equity (including buyout and growth equity), venture capital, real assets (timberland, infrastructure, and real estate), natural resources, private credit, and hedge funds. Public filings show commitments to managers operating across the entire corporate lifecycle, from early-stage venture to large-cap buyouts.

Public investment-policy documents do not enumerate specific excluded sectors. As a public university endowment, Missouri faces periodic pressure from student and faculty groups regarding fossil-fuel exposure, but the Board of Curators has not adopted a formal divestment mandate as of mid-2024.

At an estimated $2.0 billion to $2.5 billion, the University of Missouri endowment is significantly smaller than the systems of Texas ($68 billion-plus), California, or Michigan. It is roughly comparable in scale to public flagships such as the University of Nebraska or University of Iowa, though its satellite-office structure and co-investment appetite are atypical for its cohort.

The endowment operates as an investment office within the University of Missouri System, with the CIO reporting to the system president. The Board of Curators, appointed by the governor, approves investment policies and sizable manager commitments. The endowment supports all four campuses and MU Health Care through annual distributions set by the board.