Inside Harvard’s Radical Plan to Reverse a Decade of Poor Returns

Early on Jan. 25, staffers at Harvard University’s endowment streamed into the boardroom on the 14th floor of its offices in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s building. In back-to-back sessions, endowment executives told them big changes were coming to Harvard’s investment strategy, and that half the firm’s 230-person staff would be laid off. Traders have been told to wind down their portfolios by the end of March as the $36 billion endowment prepares to close its hallmark internal hedge funds and invest nearly all its money with outside money managers. The dramatic steps are just the beginning of an overhaul engineered by new chief N.P. “Narv” Narvekar, the endowment’s fourth chief executive in a decade.