Smart Money Challenge

The New Harvard Man
- (Smart Money – February 2006)

With a $28 billion portfolio of emerging-markets debt, Pimco’s (the world’s largest bond shop) Mohamed El-Erian was one of the most powerful bond managers in the world. Now he’s taking on a bigger challenge: managing Harvard’s 26 billion endowment.

El-Erian shared his thoughts on interest rates, home prices, the Chinese economy and the challenges of running the world’s largest university endowment.

This new role presents many challenges.

It’s a challenge because I need to learn new things; its an attraction because you couldn’t choose a better place to learn them.

What other challenges are you expecting?

So there’s a rebuilding challenge, but none of the timber or real estate people have left.