Jeff Smith joined Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y, as a senior investment officer on April 8, a spokesperson confirmed in an email.
He replaces Sean Olesen, who left Cornell in February and joined the New York-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in March as the director of investments for its $2 billion endowment.
Smith will be responsible for overseeing private equity and venture capital investments for the university’s $10.7 billion endowment. Cornell’s Office of University Investments is in New York.
Prior to Cornell, Smith was a managing director at the Smithsonian Institution, which has a $2.6 billion endowment. He had worked for at the Washington-based museum, research and educational complex since 2010. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian could not immediately be reached.
Smith wrote that he is “very proud and humbled to both join the university and to have served a small part in the Smithsonian’s legacy” in a LinkedIn post April 14.
