Ms. Rukaiyah Adams

Chief Investment Officer, Meyer Memorial Trust

Rukaiyah Adams is the CIO at Meyer Memorial Trust, one of the largest charitable foundations in the Pacific Northwest. Throughout her tenure as CIO, Ms. Adams has delivered top quartile performance; and beginning in 2017, she was placed in the top 5% of foundation and endowment CIOs. Under the leadership of Ms. Adams, Meyer increased assets managed by diverse managers by more than 3x, to 40% of all assets under management, and women managers by 10x, to 25% of AUM, proving that hiring diverse managers is not a concessionary practice. Before joining Meyer, she ran the $6.5 billion capital markets fund at The Standard. Ms. Adams was the recent chair of the Oregon Investment Council, the board that manages approximately $100 billion of public pension for the State of Oregon. During her tenure as chair, the Oregon state pension fund has been the top-performing public pension fund in the United States. She serves on the boards of directors of the Albina Vision Trust, the Self Enhancement, Inc. Foundation, Oregon Health and Science University Foundation, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, where she also serves on the investment committee. She also serves on the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission. She has engaged in pro bono legal work on behalf of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, the Homeless Prenatal Program in San Francisco, and the Children’s Defense Fund. Her 2016 Ted talk — A Homegirl’s Guide to Being Powerful — about her path to becoming a more thoughtful investor and the role of investment capital in achieving social justice has more than 10,000 views. Ms. Adams holds a bachelor’s degree with academic distinction from Carleton College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.