How to Follow LP Staff Moves Into Warm Paths, From New York City to the California Endowment
On 29 September 2026, The California Endowment named Valerie Red-Horse Mohl managing director of investments, putting her at the head of investments for the foundation's roughly $4 billion portfolio. She joins from the New York City Comptroller's Bureau of Asset Management, where she was deputy chief investment officer for responsible investing. Earlier in her career she was chief financial officer of the East Bay Community Foundation and founded a Native American-owned investment bank focused on tribal economic development, in a career of more than three decades.
For GPs, this is more than a people story. The managers she worked with in New York now have a relationship with the person running investments at a $4 billion foundation. That is what a warm path looks like when it is created by a staff move rather than a shared dinner, and it is one of the most reliable ways to reach an LP that does not know you.
What she inherits
At year-end 2025, The California Endowment held about $1.4 billion in equities, $902 million in private equity, $665 million in hedge funds, $368 million in fixed income, $335 million in real estate and $246 million in real assets. Private equity splits into about $430 million of venture capital and $472 million of buyout and growth. The foundation has also allocated $350 million to impact investing, including $150 million for mission-related investments across venture capital, private equity and affordable housing.
On those figures, private equity is about 23% of a $3.9 billion total, and venture accounts for 48% of the private equity book by capital. The California Endowment describes itself as a private, statewide foundation dedicated to improving health and racial equity across California. It runs a live private markets program, not one just starting out, and a new investment leader with a background in responsible investing and diverse manager programs will have a view on how the impact sleeve and the core portfolio fit together.
Why staff moves are the best warm path most GPs ignore
Most GPs map warm paths through co-investors and shared LPs, the approach we set out in our research on how warm introductions help GPs close LPs faster. Staff moves add a third route that is often stronger. An allocator who has already diligenced your firm, sat through your annual meetings or tracked your reporting does not need to be convinced you exist. She needs a reason to bring you into a new portfolio. September alone brought several senior LP seat changes worth mapping, from OMERS promoting a new head of OMERS Ventures to Northwestern Medicine hiring a new chief investment officer.
A step by step way to use a staff move
First, build the list. Each week, log senior investment hires and departures at the LPs you care about, and record where each person came from. The field that matters is the prior seat, not the new one.
Second, check your own history. Did your firm pitch, meet or manage money for the person's previous institution while she was there? Pull the meeting notes, the data room access logs and any diligence questionnaires she saw. If she backed you before, you have the strongest path there is. If she passed, you still have a known contact who understands your strategy.
Third, map second-degree paths. If you have no direct history, find the GPs, consultants and co-investors who do. A manager in her former portfolio who co-invests with you is a natural introducer, and our guide to the warm path to LPs covers how to ask.
Fourth, wait for the settling-in period, but not too long. A new investment leader typically starts by reviewing the existing book. A short, specific note in the first weeks that congratulates her and offers one relevant data point lands better than a pitch. The real conversation comes when she starts looking at new commitments.
Fifth, fit the pitch to the new seat, not the old one. A foundation of about $4 billion writes smaller tickets than a large city pension system, and has a different liquidity profile. If you are an emerging manager in venture or impact-oriented private equity, lead with why your fund fits a foundation's portfolio and its mission-related sleeve, not with what she backed before.
What to avoid
Do not treat the move as permission to skip the process. Foundations run their own diligence, and a new leader who fast-tracks a former relationship takes a reputational risk. Make it easy for her to say yes on the merits: a clean DDQ, current performance and a clear answer on fit. And do not mass-message every contact at the new institution. One well-placed introduction beats ten cold notes.
What to watch next
Watch for the first new commitments under the foundation's new investment leader, and for further hires as the team takes shape. FundLinx members can track LP staff moves and the managers connected to them.
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