Noelle Laing, chief of investments for Vision Builders.
With the kind permission of Builders Vision
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Vision Builders, the family office of Billionaire Walmart Heir Lukas Walton, promoted Noelle Laing to the director of investments.
The company based in Chicago uses philanthropy and impact investment to meet three global challenges: clean energy, food sustainability and ocean health.
Laing started working with Walton 12 years ago when he was a customer at Cambridge Associates, where she managed Impact Investments. She joined Builders Vision in 2019 and was CIO of the company’s philanthropy branch, Builders Initiative, since 2022.
As such, Laing transferred 90% of the endowment of $ 1.7 billion to “investments lined up by the mission” which advances social and environmental causes and have led a team that has invested more than $ 300 million in startups and fund managers at an early stage.
In his new role in the whole family of the family, Laing will also supervise certain family trusts and the business management branch of the company. A spokesperson told CNBC that Builders Asset Management had a taxable portfolio of several billion dollars, but refused to specify its size.
“Noelle has played a decisive role in the success of our investment strategies and is the perfect person for the position,” Walton said in an ad. “Thanks to increased coordination and shared vision, we can be even more effective in pursuing these objectives in our sectors.”
Laing consolidates the investment teams of the two divisions and will supervise around 20 investors. She plans to make about half a dozen hiring, bringing the team’s workforce to almost 30.
Builders Vision represents a growing class of family offices with assets and staff that compete with those of institutional investors. Laing has told CNBC that this scale allows Builders Vision to tackle its basic causes in several ways covering non-profit subsidies, small bets on startups that manage new technologies and co-investments and several million dollars to fund managers.
“It is a range of investments, and it allows us to really have a deep view of the different ways that we can get an exhibition and move the oceans, food and agriculture and energy in the future,” she said. “We can choose the tool in which the wallet to see this vision through.”
Builders Vision recently supported Norway’s Bluefront Equity, a sustainable seafood fund. In November, the company co-garanti $ 70 million in the debt held by the Bahamas, allowing the government to borrow at a lower cost and to award savings to marine conservation.
Laing began his career at Cambridge Associates in 2003, leaving in 2008 to work on the Red Cross and a retirement fund. She returned to the investment notice in 2010.
Laing is part of a group of small but increasing women who manages investments for ultra-rich, notably Erin Harkless Moore of Melinda French Gates’ Pivot Ventures and Margo Doyle of S-Cubed Capital, the Family Office of Billionaire Capitalst Mark Stevens. Rebecca Carland, now CIO of the Knight Foundation, was CIO of asset management manufacturers until the end of last year.
The four women are also alumni of Cambridge Associates, the best advisor to wealthy families, allocations and foundations with some 300 members of senior investment staff. David Jallits, another veteran from Cambridge Associates, oversees investments for the Duchossois family in Chicago.
“You have so many resources and so many opinions of people, which is such a large part of Cambridge magic,” said Laing. “It is an excellent training ground for a place like Builders Vision where you can focus, then implement Cambridge’s best ideas.”
Correction: This story has been updated to delete an incorrect detail surrounding Noelle Laing’s work in Cambridge Associates.