Mary Jo Palermo

I spent two decades as an asset allocator for families with institutional-size portfolios, the last ten as chief investment officer — first setting asset allocation, then choosing managers to execute. In the previous two decades I was on Wall Street in Latin American debt sales and trading, where the market judged every decision by the close. In each half of my career I built a business on an institutional platform, which taught me what to look for in a manager. Across four decades of cycles, no portfolio I was responsible for was ever a distressed seller. I was at Cambridge Associates for twenty-two years, in its inaugural Partner class. As the firm moved into discretionary portfolio management, I grew a twenty-person team and led it as Chief Investment Officer and business head. We ran portfolios for twelve first- and second-generation families, all but one new to the firm, most with full discretion. The business grew by referral; under my leadership, no client left over performance or service. I founded a confidential peer network where those families discussed industries of the future. Every family had competitive advantages it was never asked to name: decision-makers who stay decades, a low spending draw, and unique industry expertise. I addressed liabilities first: what the capital had to support, and when — operating businesses, legacy work, enterprise obligations. Only then did we ask what the family wanted the capital to do. The allocation came last, adapted from the endowment model, so an owner could see what their capital protected before deciding how much was free to grow. A family that built a business knows that industry from the inside. I introduced those families to managers who could answer their questions, but who had questions of their own. That network fed the co-investment programs I designed. I ran each family's investment committee and set decision rights and action plans in advance, so families could act in any market: to invest, to wait, or to take money off the table. I began in New York on the creditor side of the 1980s Latin American debt crisis, then sold that debt, at Chase, to business owners buying it back. I was on J.P. Morgan's emerging-markets trading floor when the Mexican peso broke in 1994, then built and headed emerging-markets sales in Private Wealth through the Asian, Russian, and Brazilian crises. Later I ran the Mexico wealth business. I left Cambridge in June 2026. I advise family offices, investment committees, and founders on portfolio strategy, governance, and the direction of the enterprise.