Yale's Investor Keeps Playbook

He isn't a household name. But as the Yale University's endowment's chief investment officer for two decades, David Swensen has earned a reputation as one of the world's savviest and most successful investors.

He pioneered an approach that de-emphasized stocks and bonds while embracing less-traditional fare like hedge funds, private equity, and oil and gas. During his tenure, Yale has had an average annual return of 16% for the past 10 years through June, compared with a 2% average for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Yale's assets more than tripled over that period to $23 billion, trailing only Harvard ...