Olaolu Aganga

Olaolu Aganga was working as a vice president at Goldman Sachs when she had what she describes as her second “existential crisis” (the first was deciding whether to leave her job at Citi to pursue an MBA). At the time, she was working with institutional clients, including asset managers, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, asset owners, and hedge funds to enhance returns or protect against risk. But she could only offer guidance; she wasn’t the ultimate decision-maker.

“I felt inadequate,” she remembers. “I just did not necessarily feel I was living up to what I had originally gone to Stanford GSB for.”

In 2018, Aganga left Goldman and, in time, became a managing director at BlackRock, serving as outsourced chief investment officer for endowments, foundations, and healthcare asset owners. (An OCIO is just what the name suggests: A chief investment officer who works outside the organization whose assets are being invested.) The fiduciary role was a better fit: Aganga embraces her responsibilities to her clients. In September 2023, she joined Mercer as a partner and chief investment officer for the United States, where she leads the investments team and works with similar clients.

“At Goldman,” she explains, “I was in a division where we weren’t the fiduciaries; we weren’t the named stewards. We were providing information but, at the end of the day, other people made the decisions.”

After growing up in Nigeria and Botswana, Aganga says she didn’t know what she wanted to do when she came to the United States for college at the age of 16.

Today, she describes her work at Mercer as “a calling.”

“I am the outsourced CIO and fiduciary for pensions, not-for-profits, health care, insurance, and wealth management organizations,” she says. “I’m responsible for the end outcome, for people to retire with dignity. I’m a steward of assets. I take extreme emotional ownership of all these things.”

You helped write a calculus textbook as an undergraduate at Smith College. What were you thinking about for a career path at the time?

I have an older brother who, as a kid, knew he wanted to be a doctor; my parents were college professors — my dad is a large-animal vet; my mom is a plant scientist. I grew up in a good, traditional Nigerian household where everyone is supposed to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer. I couldn’t do what they did, but math to me came a little bit more naturally. At Smith, I thought I was going to do academia and textbooks. But it was boring to me. Ultimately, through networking with different organizations and alumni and broader outreach, I was able to land a job in derivatives — back to calculus and math — at Salomon Brothers, which became part of Citi.

How did your time at Citi set the tone for your later career?

I was at Citi from 2003 to the financial crisis [of 2008], and that was part of the catalyst for me to do a little soul-searching. When Bear [Stearns] went under, I asked myself, “What am I doing with my life?” It was a let-me-see-what-else-is-out-there situation. I remember telling my friends I wanted to go to business school. They didn’t think it was a good idea.

Because so many people had been laid off and were doing the same thing?

Exactly. It was not the time. But I ended up getting into the GSB — my first choice. And then Citi didn’t go under, so it was: Do I stay at my job? Do I go? I remember when I resigned [my colleagues] were confused, in a sense. They were like, “The people who leave are the ones who got laid off or whose firms went under.” But being at the GSB blew my mind: It was the ability to really dream and redefine what was possible.

In what way? What became possible that otherwise might not have been?

When you’re in school, your immediate focus is finding that next job. Today, in the last few years, almost everything I’m doing is what you learn in business school: organizational behavior, the touchy-feely stuff — how do you manage people.

Another thing I learned at the GSB is not to limit yourself. I am the U.S. CIO for Mercer, a leader in the OCIO space. Frankly, there are not that many women or people of color in that type of role. When you intersect the two, I’m maybe one of 10. At the GSB, I learned that there are no limitations. Bring your authentic self to whatever it is that you do. The GSB motto — change lives, change organizations, change the world? Today, I feel like I’m doing that.

Can you say a bit more about the outsourced CIO role and how it evolved over time?

It’s interesting. It was always there, but it’s grown meaningfully in the last seven to 10 years. The markets and regulatory structure are more complex; not all firms and organizations can afford to have that role in-house. The large majority of organizations across the United States need to outsource that to others who have that expertise.

What is most gratifying about your work?

I’ll give you an example. For pensions, the question is: How funded is your pension? We’re trying to grow the assets so you can fund the pension. When the pension is fully funded, they terminate people like us. It’s like, “You helped us reach our goal; you’re fired.” It’s a weird thing. If you do a really good job, you work yourself out of a job. At Mercer, we consider defined benefit plan terminations a badge of honor. Yeah, we have to find a new client, but the pride is on the fact that we helped our client achieve their objective.

You’ve been involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts over the years. Why is that important to you?

If you have a lot of the same people thinking and operating the same way, how do you advance anything? When I think of diversity, it’s really making sure that you bring a broad range of ideas, experiences, and thoughts to holistically look at a situation to make sure you don’t have any blind spots. I tell people if you have 100% of anything, that’s a problem.

You’ve worked in finance long enough to see lots of ups and downs. What keeps you grounded?

My daughter throws food in my face. That’s humbling. Having a toddler grounds you; it just does. That’s one thing. Another is that I’ve been privileged to be around super smart people across every organization I’ve worked with, and Mercer is no exception. We’re a global firm. If something is going on in X, Y, or Z region, I pick up the phone and call someone in X, Y, or Z region. Having that reach, that institutional knowledge is so important. You may or may not have seen something, but somebody else has.

You talked a lot about family influences — especially your parents’ and brother’s careers — but how do you think growing up in Nigeria and Botswana has affected your outlook on your work or life more generally over the years?

My upbringing is central to who I am today, both personally and professionally. My family moved from Nigeria to Botswana in search of better employment opportunities and a better quality of life. I didn’t come from much, so I don’t take anything for granted, and I take my responsibility as a steward of capital incredibly seriously.

Today, my parents don’t live in the United States. They’ve always been between Botswana and Nigeria, so I’ve never lost sight of who I am or where I come from.

Photos by Eugene Krasnaok