Manager, Alpha Analytics and Portfolio Risk

MacArthur Foundation; United States; Hybrid; USD 203,000 - 248,000; Full time

Job summary

The MacArthur Foundation seeks a seasoned Manager, Portfolio Risk and Alpha Strategies to join the Investments team in Chicago. You will manage portable alpha operations, oversee risk analytics, and partner with the Deputy CIO on portfolio construction and decision making.

Experience in derivatives, risk budgeting, and data-driven analytics is required; strong leadership and communications skill are essential for collaboration with senior staff and Investment Committee.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in a quantitative field; graduate degree a plus; CFA charterholder strongly preferred.
• 7–10 years of investment management experience in multi-asset portfolios.
• Experience in institutional risk management including risk budgeting, VaR, factor and currency exposures.

Responsibilities

• Run day-to-day portable alpha program operations and oversee derivatives trades.
• Monitor portfolio risk framework, total market risk, downside exposure, factor exposures, currency exposure.
• Lead decomposition/analysis of external manager returns; provide conclusions for senior PMs.
• Participate in Risk Committee and contribute to portfolio decisions and reporting.
• Mentor junior staff and grow the team; support asset allocation and scenario analysis.

Skills

Portfolio risk management

Risk budgeting

Communication

Leadership

Analyst development

Derivatives knowledge

Asset allocation

Strategy and decisions

Education

Quantitative degree (math, stats, engineering, economics, finance, CS)

CFA charterholder

Tools

Excel

Python

Job description

Job Description

About the Foundation:

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the nation’s largest independent foundations. The Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur invests in solving some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, including advancing global climate solutions, promoting local justice reform in the U.S., revitalizing local news, expanding who creates, uses, and benefits from artificial intelligence, and strengthening the well-being of Native communities. In addition to the MacArthur Fellows Program and the global 100&Change competition, the Foundation continues its historic commitments to the role of journalism in a responsive democracy as well as the vitality of our headquarters city, Chicago. The Foundation also maintains offices in Nigeria and India.

Summary:

The Investments team manages the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $9.6 billion investment portfolio. The portfolio is managed within a globally diversified, multi-asset class framework with the objective of earning a 5% real return annually. It serves as the source of funds for the Foundation’s grant making and other organizational expenses.

The Manager, Portfolio Risk and Alpha Strategies, has primary responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the Foundation’s portfolio risk analytics, manager return and factor decomposition and portable alpha program. The Manager reports to the Deputy Chief Investment Officer. The Manager partners closely with the Deputy CIO on portfolio construction, risk-aware decision-making and the implementation of derivative-based exposures. The Manager also serves as a senior technical leader for the team’s data, analytics and AI-enabled workflows. The Manager is expected to operate as a senior practitioner from day one. Over time, the Manager will grow into a broader portfolio leadership role that contributes to asset allocation, manager underwriting and Investment Committee dialogue.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Run the day-to-day operation of the Foundation’s portable alpha program under the strategic oversight of the Deputy CIO. Responsibilities include interaction with the overlay manager, execution of derivatives trades to manage market exposure and ongoing oversight of the program’s performance and operations.

• Operate the Foundation’s portfolio risk management framework on a day-to-day basis, including monitoring of total market risk, downside exposure, factor exposures, currency exposures and portfolio resilience, working in partnership with the Deputy CIO

• Lead the decomposition and analysis of external manager returns, including factor exposure analysis, performance attribution and alpha-beta separation

• Participate as a member of the Risk Committee

• Develop conclusions from those analyses for use by the senior portfolio managers, the Deputy CIO and CIO

• Manage the Foundation’s counterparty risk on an ongoing basis, including monitoring, limit setting and reporting

• Manage the Foundation’s portfolio of short-term cash enhancement instruments

• Participate in prospective manager presentations. Contribute to the underwriting of public equity and other marketable mandates as the role matures

• Contribute to the Foundation’s annual asset allocation process, including capital markets assumptions, scenario work and portfolio construction analysis

• Measure currency and factor exposure across the portfolio. Evaluate hedges for both public and private investments

• Partner with the Operations team on the design of the Investments team’s data and analytics infrastructure, defining what the analytics need to show to support portfolio decisions and shaping the analytical content of reports, dashboards and configuration models

• Maintain sufficient technical fluency in data architecture, ETL pipelines, and API-based integrations across market data, accounting, custody, risk and manager data systems to engage Operations and external providers on design and implementation

• Implement the Investments team’s AI agent roadmap as defined by the CIO, including integration with Dynamo and the analytics layer, deployment and evaluation of agentic workflows and the technical governance frameworks (data quality, audit logging, human-in-the-loop boundaries) that govern production and use. Partner with the Senior Analyst, Strategy and Operations on rollout and adoption across the team.

• Prepare materials for the Investment Committee in support of the Deputy CIO and CIO, including ad hoc analyses, portfolio updates and materials supporting strategic portfolio decisions

• Mentor junior staff and manage direct reports as the team grows

• May perform other duties as assigned

Qualifications:

• Undergraduate degree in a quantitative field such as mathematics, statistics, engineering, economics, finance, or computer science; graduate degree a plus. CFA charterholder strongly preferred.

• 7 to 10 years of investment management experience, including direct experience managing or being deeply embedded in an institutional multi-asset portfolio (endowment, foundation, outsourced CIO, sovereign wealth, pension or large multi-family office).

• Experience operating within an institutional risk management framework, including risk budgeting, value-at-risk, factor and currency exposures, scenario analysis and stress testing.

• Hands-on experience decomposing manager returns, including factor exposure analysis, performance attribution and alpha-beta separation. Ability to translate analytical results into clear conclusions for senior portfolio managers.

• Working knowledge of equity and fixed income derivatives, including pricing, margining and the operational mechanics of overlay and portable alpha programs. Experience underwriting and overseeing external managers preferred.

• Ability to design and maintain production data and analytics infrastructure for an investment office, including data architecture, ETL pipelines and reporting layers. Practical experience integrating external systems via APIs across market data, accounting, custody, risk and manager data providers. Advanced Excel and proficiency in Python required.

• Working knowledge of AI and large language models in an institutional investment context. Ability to evaluate AI use cases on their merits, distinguishing applications that add durable value from those that introduce model, data or governance risk disproportionate to the benefit.

• Interest and capability in helping to author the operating frameworks that govern the team’s use of data and AI tools, including standards for data quality, documentation, human review and the boundary between automated workflows and analyst or PM judgment.

• Experience managing and developing analysts in an investment context, with the ability to lead and grow a small team of one or two direct reports.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to present complex investment concepts to senior stakeholders.

The position is hybrid and based in Chicago, Illinois.

Annual salary for this role will start at $225,000 . This position is also eligible for an incentive bonus of up to 130% of the base salary. We offer a generous total compensation package that emphasizes both base salary and a comprehensive benefits package to support your life, health, and well-being.

Work Environment and Reasonable Accommodations

The work environment is an office setting. Requests for reasonable accommodations will be considered to enable a person with disabilities to perform the job. Reasonable accommodations are also available during the interview process.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.