Former Vanderbilt Treasurer William Spitz named Lifetime Achievement Winner

William Spitz, former treasurer of Vanderbilt University, has been named the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Winner by Foundation & Endowment Money Management. Spitz retired from Vanderbilt last year. In the 22 years that Spitz served as Vanderbilt’s vice chancellor of investments and treasurer, the school’s endowment grew to $3.5 billion from $300 million and became more highly diversified. He pioneered the concept of a more flexible, broader approach to asset allocation, which several other endowments have since emulated. “Bill had a wonderful knack of knowing how to take seeds and make them grow,” said K. Beth Johnson, senior consultant at Hammond Associates and a former investment director at Vanderbilt. “More than once he accepted investment allocations of insignificant portfolio value in highly oversubscribed investment... [read full story]