Alumna Thacker named to head Rice Management Co.

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Allison Kendrick Thacker, a managing director for RS Investments, a major mutual fund and institutional investment firm, has been named president of the Rice Management Co. She will also serve as Rice’s chief investment officer, treasurer and vice president for investments.

	ALLISON KENDRICK THACKER
	PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL MARTINEZ PHOTOGRAPHY

The Rice Management Co. was established in 2009 to focus on Rice’s endowment and investments.

“Allison is a savvy, intelligent investor, as her track record with RS Investments for the past 11 years shows,” said Jim Crownover ’65, chair of the Rice Board of Trustees. ”I have enjoyed getting to know her during the search process and I have the utmost confidence that Rice’s endowment will be in good hands as the university enters its second century.”

As managing director of the RS Growth Group for RS Investments, Thacker led a 10-member team responsible for five mutual funds and two institutional strategies that managed nearly $2 billion in assets. These investments were credited with consistently outperforming their peer funds and relevant indexes. In addition, Thacker co-managed the RS Technology Fund, which has outperformed 88 percent of the funds in its category over the past five years with a 7.8 percent return rate. The Standard & Poor’s 500, the index used for monitoring the growth of 500 large-capital common stocks in the U.S., had a return rate of only 0.6 percent during that same period.

”I’ve spent the last decade working with a cohesive and intelligent group of people in a team environment, and I am looking forward to doing the same with the outstanding team I will be joining at the Rice Management Co.,” Thacker said. ”I’m very excited by the chance to make Rice’s assets even more valuable over the next 10 years.”

Thacker was an economics major at Rice, where the university’s endowment ”made it affordable for me to go to school,” she said. ”Years later I understand what a tremendous resource the university has and, in the long term, I would like to elevate the Rice endowment’s global reputation. Rice is entering its second century, so our energy should be focused on where the endowment should go over the next century.”

As of June 30, 2010, the market value of Rice’s endowment was $3.79 billion. The value for the 2011 fiscal year, which ended June 30, will be announced this fall.

After graduating from Rice in 1996 with a B.A. in economics, Thacker earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and worked as a financial analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. and as an analyst for international growth equities for Putnam Investments before joining RS Investments in 2000.

She is a founding board member of KIPP Heartwood Academy, a college preparatory charter school in San Jose, Calif. She and her husband, Rice alum Troy Thacker ’95, will be moving to Houston with their three children.

“Allison brings an exceptional investment track record and proven experience as a team leader to the helm of Rice Management Co.,” Rice University President David Leebron said. ”I’m especially pleased that she also brings her experience as a Rice student who benefited from the financial aid made possible, in large part, by Rice’s endowment. She understands our culture, she values our high-quality education and she will be committed to making sure that many more generations of students have the same opportunities.”

The Rice Management Co. is part of the university but has its own bylaws and a board of directors appointed by the Rice Board of Trustees. Ron Long, who has been serving as interim president, will return to his role as associate vice president for investments and associate treasurer.

”Ron was a steady and skilled hand guiding the Rice Management Co. during this transition,” Leebron said. ”He will be a great partner with Allison as we contemplate the challenges and opportunities ahead for Rice’s financial security and success.”