Matthew Mendelsohn

Yale University named internal endowment veteran Matthew Mendelsohn as the next head of its more than $31 billion endowment, capping a search for the successor to famed endowment manager David Swensen. The 36-year-old Mr. Mendelsohn was a protégé of Mr. Swensen’s who joined the Yale Investments Office in 2007 and went on to run its venture capital investments. Yale’s venture footprint makes up more than a quarter of its endowment’s portfolio and has been an important contributor to the endowment’s returns in recent years. Raised in St. Louis, Mendelsohn earned a bachelor of science degree in physics from Yale. Upon graduation he was hired by Swensen, whom he first met through Yale’s Berkeley College, where Mendelsohn remains a fellow. From 2013 to 2018, he co-taught a course on endowment management at Yale School of Management with Dean Takahashi, former senior director in the Investments Office and now executive director of Yale’s Carbon Containment Lab. Mendelsohn lives in the New Haven area with his wife, Lauren Martini ’13 Ph.D., and their two children.