One thing that is unlikely to have performed worse, however, is compensation for the Harvard Management Company’s top staff. The Harvard Crimson reported in May that the company’s head of public markets received $11.5 million in compensation in 2013, the year before he took over as CEO. The former chief executive officer took home $9.6 million in 2013.
Harvard’s endowment is still the largest of any U.S. institution of higher education, but it has been unable to recover the heights it reached before the financial crisis. The new CEO, Stephen Blyth, who took over in January of this year, has set a goal of returning the endowment’s growth to a position near the top of the 10 largest university endowments, but has admitted that based on the latest results that goal is unlikely to be reached this year. According to The Wall Street Journal, Harvard now ranks fourth in growth.
Regarding compensation Blyth said:
[W]e should align compensation more closely with the aggregate goals of HMC, … in addition to the success of individual portfolios. Fostering a deeper sense of ownership in the overall success of HMC amongst all our staff, and developing a true sense of partnership amongst senior investment professionals at HMC, are key priorities for me.
We have therefore undertaken a review of the compensation system at HMC. Whilst we will continue to have a significant component of compensation linked to outperformance of portfolios versus their market indices and industry benchmarks, I plan to introduce components linked to the overall success of HMC. Incenting all our staff to improve the aggregate performance of HMC can only increase the likelihood of us achieving our goals over the long term.
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