Letitia Johnson

Letitia Johnson has served as Chief Investment Officer of Amherst College since September 9, 2019, overseeing what was then a roughly $2.9 billion long-term investment pool — comprising the endowments of Amherst College, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and several long-term college reserves. She succeeded Mauricia Geissler, Amherst's first CIO, who retired after 16 years having grown the endowment from about $900 million to roughly $2.4 billion. Under Johnson the pool has since grown to approximately $4 billion.

Before Amherst, Johnson spent her entire career — from 2006 to 2019 — at investment consulting firm Cambridge Associates, based in its Boston office. She rose to Managing Director and led the firm's Endowment & Foundation team, managing more than 10 client portfolios ranging from roughly $100 million to $4 billion and overseeing total assets in excess of $7 billion. She has said the move to a single institution was appealing: "Being able to focus on and contribute to one single portfolio and mission is a wonderful opportunity."

Johnson holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Brown University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. Beyond Amherst, she has served on the investment committees of Boston University and Mass General Brigham. When she was hired, Amherst simultaneously announced it was relocating its six-person investment office to Boston to improve access to talent and proximity to fund managers.

• Manager-driven, "invest in people": "We invest in people. Strategies can change over time, but hopefully the people we entrust our money to don't." She backs only top-tier ("A-list") managers and favors long-duration partnerships, some spanning 20+ years.
• Flexible, low-turnover, concentrated portfolio: Uses allocation *ranges* rather than rigid fixed targets, warning that "a too rigid process can undo what managers do best." The book is equity-heavy and concentrated with low turnover.
• "Ecosystem" organization: Groups holdings by ecosystems (healthcare, China, technology, value) instead of standard asset-class labels, to build deeper thematic and manager understanding.
• Inflation & macro views: Considers explicit inflation hedging "extremely costly and highly unreliable," dismisses gold ("there's no good way to value it"), and prefers equities as long-run inflation protection through earnings growth. Does not try to time the Federal Reserve.
• Liquidity discipline: Avoids long-term bonds to limit inflation risk while maintaining liquidity reserves to navigate crises.