Harvard Endowment Is Said to Lose Another Private Equity Veteran

(Bloomberg) -- Melinda Barber, who earlier this year was promoted to managing director at Harvard University's endowment, is departing, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Barber, who focuses on private equity at Harvard Management Co., is joining Pilot House Associates, which manages money for billionaire Amos Hostetter Jr., said the person, who asked not to be identified because the move hasn't been announced publicly.

Barber, a Dartmouth College business school graduate, joined Harvard Management in 2012 from Boston money manager Raptor Capital Management, according to her LinkedIn profile.

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Patrick McKiernan, a spokesman for Harvard Management, declined to comment. Pilot House didn't immediately reply to a phone call seeking comment.

Harvard Management, which oversees the university's $37.1 billion endowment, has overhauled its investment strategy over the past year. N.P. ‘Narv' Narvekar, the chief executive officer hired from Columbia University in 2016, has cut about 100 jobs from the 230-person staff as he shifts more assets to external portfolio managers, the person said.

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Barber's resignation follows the departure of Rich Hall, the former head of private equity who left Harvard Management earlier this year to join the University of Texas Investment Management Co. as deputy chief investment officer. Harvard has about $7.5 billion of private equity investments, and last year sold about $1 billion of stakes in the secondary market as it sought to improve the portfolio.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael McDonald in Boston at mmcdonald10@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Mary Romano, Peter Eichenbaum

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