Paula Volent

Paula Volent served as Chief Investment Officer at Bowdoin College in Maine for many years, building the endowment's investment program using the Yale endowment model despite Bowdoin's relatively modest size. She generated exceptional returns through a diversified alternative investment portfolio, demonstrating that smaller endowments could access top-tier private equity and venture capital funds with disciplined relationship-building. Bowdoin's endowment consistently appeared among the best-performing in its peer group on a risk-adjusted basis. Volent subsequently joined Rockefeller University as VP for Investments. Her success at a small endowment proved that institutional quality investment management was achievable without enormous scale, making her a model for other small endowment managers.