Robin Diamonte, CIO, RTX Corp.

Robin Diamonte serves as the CIO of RTX Corp., overseeing more than $105 billion in global retirement assets for the aerospace and defense company.

After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering, she worked in technology support for Verizon Investment Management Corp., landing an entry-level position there with the help of a mentor. She spent over a decade with the company, eventually becoming manging director, overseeing all portfolio management and research before joining United Technologies Corp. as CIO in 2004. In April 2020, Ms. Diamonte oversaw the merger of UTC with Raytheon Co., which became Raytheon Technologies Corp., now known as RTX Corp.

Ms. Diamonte led the launch of RTX's diverse asset manager program in early 2021, which sends out annual due diligence questionnaires to collect information on the diversity of managers' boards, senior management and portfolio management.

"I think a lot of (CIOs) have shied away from putting in programs like (this) ... because they don't want to make it look like they're not choosing the best investments for their participants," as required under ERISA, she said.

However, the company chose to focus on the diversity of its managers not only because it's "the right thing to do," but also because it increases investment returns, Ms. Diamonte said.

The goal of the questionnaire is "to understand the diversity within our portfolio, and then every year, we try to improve that," by increasing the number of businesses that are minority-owned or have impressive diversity practices, she said.

Increasing diversity is important because "it's an easy way to get innovation and better ideas," Ms. Diamonte said.