Nina Scherago

Nina F. Scherago is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Edgehill Endowment Partners, a full-service OCIO she launched in 2013 alongside D. Ellen Shuman (the former Chief Investment Officer of Carnegie Corporation of New York). Edgehill was built to work exclusively with a limited number of endowments and foundations, giving mid-sized mission-based institutions access to disciplined investment practices, top-tier manager access, and the benefits of scale. Scherago ran the firm and was responsible for investing client portfolios; at its peak the firm managed roughly $2 billion for clients including Combined Jewish Philanthropies, St. John's College, and Sewanee (The University of the South).

Before Edgehill, Scherago spent 13 years at The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF), most recently as Deputy Chief Investment Officer. She was first a TIFF board member before being recruited to build and lead its hedge fund program — the Absolute Return Pools — which she grew "from an idea to $2.8 billion" across roughly 230 clients. Prior to TIFF, she spent about a decade as a Managing Director at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), where she established its private investment program spanning buyouts, venture capital, real estate, energy, and timber.

Scherago earned a B.A. from Smith College and an M.B.A. from the Darden School at the University of Virginia, and she holds the CFA designation. She has been active in nonprofit governance throughout her career, serving as a Trustee of Smith College (chair of its Finance Committee and former Investment Committee chair), a former Trustee of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company (UVIMCO, 2004–2013), and, since January 2017, a Trustee of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

In 2024, after eleven years, Scherago began winding down Edgehill amid intensifying competitive pressure on OCIO providers (from far larger players such as Goldman Sachs and Mercer) and the firm's deliberately concentrated client base. Industry observers noted she handled the wind-down unusually well — notifying clients and staff early and personally covering wind-down expenses. Her stated ethos: "My north star has always been to do the right thing for institutions and their missions and to treat people with respect."

• Invests institutional endowment and foundation capital, not personal angel checks — the "Angel Investors / Seed Round" framing in the source stub is not supported by any public record.
• Runs a concentrated OCIO model: partnering with only a limited number of endowments and foundations to enable high-touch service and "superior performance," rather than scaling to many clients.
• Builds diversified, multi-asset-class portfolios across public equities, hedge funds/absolute return, and private markets (buyouts, venture capital, real estate, energy, and timber) — reflecting the program breadth she established at HHMI and the absolute-return expertise she built at TIFF.
• Emphasizes manager access and disciplined, mission-aligned investing as the core value proposition to mid-sized nonprofit institutions.
• Stated guiding principle: *"do the right thing for institutions and their missions and to treat people with respect."*