Nuveen names Saira Malik Chief Investment Officer

Nuveen, the asset manager of TIAA, has named Saira Malik Chief Investment Officer.

As CIO, Saira will drive market and investment insights and deliver client asset allocation views from across the firm’s independent investment teams which manage $1.2T in equities, fixed income, real estate, private markets, natural resources, other alternatives and responsible investments. 

She will also lead the firm’s Global Investment Committee, which brings together the most senior leaders from Nuveen’s investment teams to deliver the best thinking and actionable portfolio allocation ideas. 

She will continue to report to William Huffman, head of the firm’s fixed income and equity platform, which includes global equities, taxable fixed income, municipals, multi-asset and private capital.

“Saira is dedicated to Nuveen’s mission of delivering strong returns to help secure the financial futures of clients and has been an essential part of the firm’s proud history and culture of deep investment expertise for nearly two decades,” said Huffman. “We are excited for Saira to leverage her skills and insights as our investment teams source additional alpha strategies and think in holistic portfolio terms to serve our clients as true partners.” 

Ms. Malik will maintain her portfolio management and leadership responsibilities for Nuveen’s $450 billion¹ global equity business in addition to developing consensus views alongside colleagues from across the firm’s diversified investment platform.

She will remain lead portfolio manager for the $132.95 billion CREF Stock strategy and a listed portfolio manager for the $37.84 billion CREF Growth and $27.21 billion CREF Global Equities strategies.²

Ms. Malik has 26 years of investment management experience in portfolio management, global research and analyst roles.

She joined Nuveen in 2003.  Prior to being named global equities CIO, she was head of global equities portfolio management and, before that, head of global equities research. Previously, she was with JP Morgan Asset Management, where she was a small cap growth portfolio and equity research analyst.

Ms. Malik has a B.S. in economics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and an M.S. in finance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She also holds the CFA designation.

A sought-after source of market expertise and insight, she writes a weekly equity market commentary on behalf of Nuveen and frequently appears on financial news networks such as CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business. She has been profiled in Kiplinger’s and Barron’s, which ranked her among the top 100 most influential women in U.S. finance.