Chief Financial Officer
Director, Risk Parity and Currency Hedging
Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System
Susan Oh is the director of risk parity and currency hedging for the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System, a $55-billion defined benefit pension plan. She focuses on asset allocation and strategy development to improve total fund diversification and risk-adjusted return. She is responsible for managing a $4-billion risk parity mandate, with $2 billion of the mandate being managed internally. She is also responsible for a $4 billion plan-wide currency hedging strategy and $7 billion diversifying strategic derivatives-based exposures.
Susan has been an innovator at PSERS initiating their swap overlay program in 2006, advocating for a greater risk-balanced asset allocation after the global financial crisis, leading the risk parity initiative in 2012 and the currency hedging initiative in 2013. These innovations have grown to become large contributors to diversification and alpha generation of the plan and led to a greater proportion of assets managed internally.
In Susan’s 24 years at PSERS, she previously served as the chair of the Asset Allocation Committee and senior portfolio manager of internal international public equities, which grew to $8 billion at its height.
Susan started her career with KPMG, where she performed audit and consulting services for corporate and government clients. She is a CFA charter holder and a licensed CPA. She holds a BS degree, summa cum laude, in accounting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
She serves on the advisory board and Women Investors’ Forum Steering Committee of the Alternative Investor Forum. In 2018 she was named as one of the 25 NextGen luminaries by the publication Chief Investment Officer.