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Keith Bozarth

Former Executive Director State of Wisconsin Investment Board

Keith S. Bozarth retired as Executive Director of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) in June 2012 and has been an active team member with FAS since that time.

During his tenure at SWIB he successfully led a number of key initiatives:

  • Modernization of Wisconsin law governing SWIB investments, providing full "prudent investor" authority;

  • Changes in Wisconsin law to provide trustees with full control of SWIB budget and staff positions;

  • Thirty percent increase in staffing at SWIB, which facilitated an increase in internal management from 20% of assets to over 50%, resulting in net cost savings;

  • Review of the actuarial assumptions used for investment return and wage growth, resulting in significant adjustment to both;

  • Implementation of a cost attribution system, assigning cost to individual portfolios, and a revised incentive program to reflect full "net return" calculation;

  • Revised incentive program to reflect market for comparable operations; and

  • Implementation of an enterprise risk management function for SWIB.

Before joining SWIB, Keith was CEO of the Orange County Employees Retirement System in California. His experience working with public pension funds began in 1992 and also includes the Teachers' Retirement System of Illinois and both the State Employees' and Public School Retirement systems in Missouri. He has served 11 years in a CEO role with oversight of investment, benefit and actuarial funding pl ans. In addition, he spent five years providing counsel to the Missouri section 457 deferred compensation plan and served one term as a member of the oversight member of the board for the plan. In total, he has nearly 25 years involved in deferred compensation or pension issues. He has overseen asset-liability studies at four different public funds, working with a range of consultants and actuaries. Keith is a well-known figure among the pension fund community and has regularly published and presented.

Keith holds a bachelor's degree and a JD degree, both from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He also was awarded the Retirement Plans Associate designation from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (joint program with the Wharton School).