McKnight Foundation Hired Its First CIO From the Impact Investing Field: How to Map Warm Paths Into a Foundation's New Chief Investment Officer

On 9 November 2026 the McKnight Foundation announced Priya Parrish as its first chief investment officer, starting 30 November, to oversee a $2.8 billion endowment. We set out the facts in our report on the appointment. This piece covers the practical question that follows: how does a fund manager find a real, honest connection to a new CIO before she has taken her seat? Everything below is our advice, not guidance from McKnight.

Start with what the foundation has made public

A first CIO arrives with a long public record, and that record is the raw material for a warm path. McKnight's announcement names her current role as partner and chief investment officer at Impact Engine, an institutional venture capital and private equity investor, and her earlier roles as CIO of Schwartz Capital Group, then Aurora Investment Management, Northern Trust Asset Management and KLD Research and Analytics. It also lists her board seat at National Equity Fund, her place on the investment committees of Alta Futures, Blue Haven Initiative and the IDP Foundation, and her teaching post at Chicago Booth. That is ten named institutions. None of them is a promise of an introduction, but each is a place where a person in your own network may have worked with her.

Step one: build your list from facts, not hopes

Write down every institution above and check each against your own relationships. Do any of your existing LPs sit on the same committees? Did one of your investors, advisers or portfolio company directors work at one of her former employers in an overlapping period? Have you co-invested with Impact Engine or met its team at an industry event? Only count a link you can state in one sentence and that the other person would confirm. A shared employer ten years ago is a conversation opener, not a recommendation. The warm introduction works only when the person making it knows both sides well enough to vouch for you.

Step two: look at how McKnight invests

The foundation says more than half of its endowment is mission aligned, that it launched its impact investing program in 2014, and that it built a $500 million climate solutions portfolio. Your path is stronger if your fund matches that language. A strategy that can show measurable environmental or social outcomes next to returns gives a mutual contact something concrete to say. If your strategy does not fit, a warm path will not fix that, and it is better to find out before you spend a favour.

Step three: ask for the narrow thing

When you approach a mutual contact, ask for something small and specific, such as whether they think McKnight would be interested in a particular strategy, and whether they would be comfortable making an introduction after she starts. Do not ask a contact to forward a pitch deck to a CIO who has not yet taken her seat. We also advise against approaching McKnight board members directly. Board members and investment committee chairs oversee the CIO and are not a prospecting channel. Our guide to warm paths into LPs covers how to qualify a link before you use it.

How this compares with other new LP chiefs

We have mapped this situation before for Mellon Foundation's promotion of its deputy to CIO and for a foundation hiring a managing director for private markets. The difference here is that McKnight's CIO is new to the organisation and to the role, so there is no incumbent relationship to ride, and the announcement does not suggest she has worked inside the foundation before. Our guide on how to follow LP staff moves into warm paths describes the monitoring routine.

What to say when you ask for the introduction

Write the request so that the mutual contact can answer it in a line. For example: "I am managing a climate solutions growth fund and I noticed that you served on the same investment committee as McKnight's new CIO. Would you be comfortable telling me whether you think she would take a short call in the new year, and if so, would you be willing to make an introduction?" That wording names the real connection, gives the contact an easy way to decline and does not ask them to vouch for your track record. If the contact says yes, send them a three-line summary of your fund that they can forward without editing. If they say no, thank them and move on. A declined introduction is useful information about how the connection is seen.

Timing

She starts on 30 November, which is 16 days from today. We would not expect new manager meetings in her first weeks, and we expect the first quarter of 2027 to be a more realistic window for a first conversation. That timing is our judgment, and McKnight has not said how it will handle manager meetings. FundLinx members can map their connections to LPs.

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