CIEBA -- Our Membership and Our Mission

CIEBA Members are over 100 of the country’s leading Chief Investment Officers who collectively manage over $2 trillion in assets, split almost evenly between defined benefit and defined contribution plans.

Our mission is to enhance corporate chief investment officer effectiveness and improve the overall soundness of the private retirement system by:

  • Offering a unique opportunity to network and leverage best practices with the country’s most experienced group of investment fiduciaries;
  • Facilitating content driven exclusively by Members, ensuring that issues covered in meetings and webinars are relevant, timely and actionable;
  • Providing a Members-only, vendor-free forum for Members to hear from prominent industry figures and to network and discuss important developing issues, develop effective solutions, and help meet investment and fiduciary responsibilities;
  • Serving as the leading voice in Washington for corporate investment fiduciaries, engaging with Congress, regulators and the media in extensive efforts to advance the interests of DB and DC plan fiduciaries and their participants;
  • Serving as an information resource for legislative and regulatory bodies and supporting constructive policy initiatives;
  • Educating Members on current industry best practices as well as new investment concepts, trends and strategies; and
  • Providing a forum to discuss retirement and investment issues impacting non-US countries.

CIEBA Members are responsible for managing a substantial portion of the assets held in the private sector retirement system, providing a robust source of long-term capital that is essential for economic growth. CIEBA is committed to strengthening the retirement system so that it continues as a major, sustainable source of retirement income for millions of Americans

Requests to become a CIEBA Member must be approved by current CIEBA Membership. Click here to see further instructions on how to join. Additional information about joining CIEBA is provided below.

CIEBA Working Group Member Benefits

Peer Networking on Current Investment and Fiduciary Issues

CIEBA’s meetings are opportunities for candid, off-the-record discussions among peers on the latest investment and fiduciary issues. Some examples of topics presented and discussed in the past include:

  • Pension de-risking
  • PBGC premiums levels
  • Protecting the Single Employer PBGC Trust
  • International regulatory trends
  • “Rothification”
  • The evolving regulation on fiduciary responsibility
  • Service provider expenses
  • Financial wellness education for participants
  • Lifetime income in DC
  • Litigation trends in DC
  • Modernizing target date solutions
  • Investment committee governance
  • Alternative beta for expanding the investor’s toolkit
  • Liability driven investing
  • The roles of alternatives and private equity
  • Risk management tools
  • Marketplace and securities lending
  • Cybersecurity
  • Benchmarking illiquid assets
  • Best practices in hiring and monitoring custodians
  • Managing downgraded assets

 

Networking with Industry Leaders

Because of the influence of CIEBA’s members, meetings regularly include some of the most influential members of the finance and government policy communities, recently including:

  • Jamie Dimon (CEO and Chairman, JPMorgan Chase)
  • David Solomon (Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs)
  • Tim Buckley (Chairman and CEO, Vanguard)
  • Dr. Alan Greenspan (former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve),
  • Steve Case (founder of AOL and CEO of Revolution LLC),
  • David Rubenstein (co-founder of The Carlyle Group),
  • Larry Fink (Chairman and CEO of BlackRock),
  • Howard Marks (Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management),
  • Kunal Kapoor (CEO of Morningstar),
  • Emmanuel Roman (CEO of PIMCO),
  • Elected officials and heads of relevant regulatory agencies.

Representatives in Washington, DC -- The CIEBA Public Policy Task Force

With some of the world’s most experienced investment experts as Members, the CIEBA Public Policy Task Force drives discussion in Washington, DC on the critical retirement, investment, tax, and policy issues of the day. Working Group Members have access to the CIEBA Public Policy Task Force, which is also designed to enable our Members to effectively coordinate with their own in-house government policy experts, coordination that is critical given today’s expanding and nuanced public policy landscape.

CIEBA has testified before Congress and met with agencies on various issues, including:

  • Maintaining the tax-advantaged status of retirement plans;
  • Encouraging regulatory coordination and encouraging flexibility for DB and DC investments;
  • Relieving the burden of PBGC premium increases and nondiscrimination rules on DB plans;
  • Supporting participant directed investment safe harbors and encouraging effective advice;
  • Supporting the safe harbor for lifetime income strategies in DC plans.

Industry Trends

Through timely surveys, CIEBA provides Members access to exclusive information on trends within the industry and issues Members are currently addressing. These include:

  • The Annual Membership Profile Survey highlights DB and DC trends in asset allocation, equity turnover, indexation, and internal and external management (all CIEBA Members complete this annual survey as a condition for Membership);
  • Surveys of discount rates and return on assets;
  • Member-driven ad hoc surveys on current issues, enabling Members to have unique access to real-time solutions and information from peers; and
  • A compensation survey provides Members with high level information on the compensation trends for CIO’s and their staffs (new in 2017).

Risk Mitigation -- The CIEBA Risk Task Force

The CIEBA Risk Task Force meets periodically to focus on risk management, including governance, investment oversight, operations & implementation, and regulatory changes.  The Task Force provides CIEBA Working Group Members with access to a forum to benchmark and implement best practices within each Member’s organization.

Joining CIEBA -- CIEBA Working Group Membership

CIEBA Working Group Members receive the following benefits:

  • Unique opportunities to network with peers and industry leaders: CIEBA Working Group Members gather for four meetings per year where Members interact with their peers and some of the most influential investment experts and policy makers in the country.

  • Annual Membership Profile, Webinars, Member Surveys and other benefits: In addition to participating in quarterly meetings, CIEBA Working Group Members receive the results of our Annual Membership Profile Survey (participation in this survey is mandatory for all Members), attend Members-only webinars, have access to our relatively new CIO Compensation Survey and have access to submit and participate in member-authored ad hoc surveys. Members use these ad hoc surveys to get timely peer-to-peer feedback on important, time-sensitive issues.

Click here to see further instructions on how to joinFor information on CIEBA membership, please contact Gigi Combe by email at [email protected].