Meet CIO Ken Lee

In the fall of 2020, Ken Lee drove from New York to Dallas with his two Cavalier King Charles spaniels — Quincy and Oscar — in the backseat of his car to begin work as the new chief investment officer at Children’s Health, where he oversees a $2 0 billion portfolio of endowment and other assets

Previously, Ken was a managing director for almost a decade at Carnegie Corporation of New York — which was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 and is one of the oldest and most influential of American grantmaking foundations focused on world peace and the advancement of education opportunities

While at Carnegie, Ken was drawn to endowment work and serving a mission-driven organization But his interest in endowments began as a student at Yale University in the late 1990s, when he took an investing seminar taught by David Swensen — former head of the Yale endowment fund and who reshaped the investing world

“The class was a way to learn about the inner workings of the investment office and how investments work But more importantly, David taught us about the ethos of investing,” Ken said “It’s a privilege to be able to serve one of these missions We should all be so lucky to do that in our work It’s the best job in the world ”

Ken holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and a MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

While at Carnegie, I was looking for the next step in my career where I could run my own team and put my stamp on something The opportunity at Children’s Health came along and was a great fit Since 2006, I’d been covering Dallas and the Texas investment community in my investing work The community was always so welcoming There is an entrepreneurial spirit here and a Texas-sized risk appetite But the other part of this job being a great fit was having a mission that resonates, and the mission of Children’s Health to make life better for children is hard to argue with There’s a line a few people told me as I was getting to know the organization: “Adult hospitals save lives, but children’s hospitals save lifetimes ” That really resonated with me There’s so much ahead for kids, and that multiplies the impact any individual acts of generosity can have ”

Children’s Health is at a strategic inflection point There’s so much change and growth happening in North Texas, and there’s an opportunity here to build something ambitious, which is super exciting Unlike many other cities in the United States, North Texas is one of the few places with net population growth due to net migration and demographic trends Because of that, we’ve embarked on projects like the expansion of Children’s Medical Center Plano to meet the needs of the community north of Dallas Those kinds of capital projects and building of programs immediately connect to my work in the investment office ”

Children’s Health has an incredible mission story and has a huge opportunity at this juncture to serve our growing community The way I define success is to build the highest quality investment organization that generates the best possible risk adjusted returns These returns allow Children’s Health to fulfill its mission and pursue ambitious initiatives like enhancing our campuses, discovering breakthrough treatments and creating a firstof-its-kind pediatric mental health initiative ”