The chief investment officer (CIO) is a Board-level executive, responsible for investments within an organization. The CIO's purpose is to understand, manage, and monitor their organization's portfolio of assets, devise strategies for growth, act as the liaison with investors, and recognize and avoid serious risks, including those never before encountered, [1] [2] [3] the emphasis being a function of the specific industry. Boards will often create an "Investment Committee" responsible for overall Investment policy, and independent oversight of the specific corporate governance concerns here. [4] [5] Smaller firms may outsource the position [6] to an "OCIO".
The CIO's function and focus will, as mentioned, differ by organization and business-type.
CIOs [11] [9] [7] often have up to ten [13] prior years professional experience within their industry. At investment firms, the CIO often will have been a large "buy side" manager; pension and Insurance CIOs filled the Investment Actuary role; corporate CIOs were Treasury-, Financial- or Corporate Finance Managers. Correspondingly, the CIO will hold [1] the relevant professional credential, and thus, respectively, may be a CAIA / CFA Charterholder, Qualified Actuary, or Professional Accountant. Their educational background is usually a Bachelors (sometimes Masters) in finance, in economics or in accounting. In many cases, the CIO will also earn an MBA, [13] [1] gaining the corporate, strategic and operations perspectives, complementary to the role.
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