CalPERS names CEO, nears CIO pick

Stausboll tapped as CEO; is Grady due to become CIO?

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System last week named Anne Stausboll as its new chief executive officer, effective Jan. 12.

Stausboll will become the first female CEO to lead CalPERS in its 77-year history. She will replace Ken Marzion, who had been serving as interim CEO. CalPERS had been without a CEO since Fred Buenrostro retired in June.

Stausboll, 52, had been the state pension fund’s interim chief investment officer since Russell Read quit that post about the same time that Buenrostro left. Read is now CEO of C Change Investments, a Cambridge, Mass.-based cleantech equity fund.

Stausboll is no stranger to CalPERS. She served in the LP’s legal office between 1994 and 1999, including two years as deputy general counsel. She left in 1999 to become general counsel for California State Treasurer Phil Angelides. Stausboll re-joined CalPERS four years ago as the state pension fund’s chief investment operating officer.

CalPERS expects it will name a new chief investment officer early in 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter.

One leading candidate, according to people cited by the Journal, is Robert Grady, managing director of the The Carlyle Group.