Elizabeth Burton is CIO at the Hawaii Employee’s Retirement System, a US public pensions plan with over $17 bn in AUM. Before moving to Hawaii in 2018 she was managing director of the quantitative strategies group at Maryland State Retirement and Pension System. Prior to that she ran her own strategy consulting business, and worked as an economist, in portfolio management at a fund of hedge funds and a as fixed income securities trader. Elizabeth is a recipient of the CIO Magazine’s 2019 Innovation Award, and was named as one of CIO’s Forty Under Forty in 2017, and was recently appointed to the Board of CAIA.

Our conversation reveals Elizabeth’s passion for sports, and some of the inspiration she has drawn from elite athletes. We also talk about her love of statistics, and how she uses confidence intervals to inform her investment approach and navigate complex decision making. We discuss about diversity in the industry currently, how it enriches groups, and how sometimes taking a broad and inclusive approach to recruiting from various disciplines can further expand the candidate pool.