Who We Are

Overview

Mission

To be a trusted and skilled global investment organization contributing to strong financial futures for the beneficiaries of the funds entrusted to us.

Vision

SWIB will be an innovative, agile and integrated organization that optimizes investment returns while managing risk and cost over the long term.

Values

Values are the fundamental beliefs of our organization. They are guiding principles that explain our desired behaviors in the workplace and ensure that we are on the right path. We believe in these values and will uphold them:

People – We believe people are the core of SWIB’s mission. We value our people beyond their work, and encourage intellectual curiosity, transparency, candor, and respect. We’re passionate about recruiting, developing, and retaining our talent. We respect, appreciate, and accept all SWIB employees and are committed to cultivating and preserving a diverse and inclusive workplace.
Excellence – We strive to exceed expectations and take pride in the quality of our work. We are motivated to continually improve and expand our viewpoints. We are results focused and process driven.
Integrity – We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards in meeting our fiduciary duty. We maintain our internal and external relationships on a solid foundation of trust, dependability, accountability, and openness.
Innovation – We believe innovation is critical to SWIB’s success and requires each person to have a genuine interest in creativity, prudently embrace change, and challenge the norm.
Collaboration – We operate as one team, seeking ways to contribute our individual talents toward achieving our shared mission. We value diverse ideas and recognize that thoughtful collaboration requires commitment, openness, preparation, and hard work.

History of SWIB and WRS

Since its creation on June 28, 1951, SWIB has been a forward-thinking investment organization. Support from government leaders and system participants has allowed SWIB to meet the challenges posed by a vastly changing investment industry.

From the beginning, it took a great deal of effort and cooperation to make SWIB happen and allow for an uncommon approach to managing state money, including the pension funds. Spearheaded by an unconventional alliance that included public policymakers who could see the state’s uninvested cash balances sitting idle, and union officials who were concerned about the diminishing value of contributions made to public worker pensions, SWIB was the work of visionaries who wanted to help ensure a strong financial future for trust fund beneficiaries. Still, they probably never imagined SWIB as we know it today, as a diverse and complex portfolio of investments.

SWIB is probably best known for its management of the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) trust funds. Today, the WRS is among the best-funded and best-managed public pension systems in the world thanks in large part to the work of SWIB. As a world-class investment organization, SWIB works to bring a disciplined, prudent, and innovative approach to the investments made for the WRS. But success does not come by chance. It takes a strong organizational strategy, leadership, and award-winning staff to ensure SWIB remains an agile and integrated organization that adds value to the funds it manages.

SWIB has a long history of being an industry leader among institutional investors innovating to meet challenging financial markets. Since its founding, SWIB’s investment strategy has become more complex. Starting with the simple investments in bonds, mortgages and some stocks in the early years, SWIB has been a leader in developing strategies designed to ensure a strong financial future for retirement system beneficiaries. In addition to being a leader in investing in equities, SWIB became one of the first pension funds to include a private placements investment program in 1965. In 1989, international markets were added, and the world was opened to the Investment Board. In 1995, SWIB again moved to the forefront by moving into developing countries as former communist states in eastern Europe were opening their borders and their economies. In 1999, it was a new venture capital program focused on Wisconsin and the Midwest. More recently, SWIB established global portfolios, added leverage, hedge funds, and more.

As the governor of Wisconsin from 1947-1951, Oscar Rennebohm was crucial to the creation of SWIB. Prior to SWIB’s creation, money collected by the state was placed in non-interest earning accounts. By the late 1940s, the state’s surplus had accumulated to over $30 million. Concerned that these funds weren’t earning interest for the state, Rennebohm appointed John C. Lobb to head the project that ultimately became SWIB. While Rennebohm opted against running for re-election in 1950, his initiative to invest Wisconsin’s surplus proved beneficial for Wisconsin and Wisconsin’s public employees both then and now.

Oscar Rennebohm

As a woman who had scrubbed the Wisconsin Capitol floors for 23 years, Ingeborg Sidwell went directly to acting Wisconsin Gov. Walter Goodland in 1943 to tell him she was getting too old to continue the job. After Goodland initially vetoed a proposal to institute pensions for government employees due to the ongoing war, Sidwell managed to convince him to change his mind. Goodland wrote to the state legislature asking for them to override the veto, to which they complied. Sidwell contributed to Wisconsin’s first pension program, paving the way for SWIB’s creation less than a decade later.

Ingeborg Sidwell

Like Gov. Rennebohm, State Treasurer John L. Sonderegger was a key figure in the creation of SWIB in the late. Sonderegger, who served as state treasurer from 1947 to 1948, shared Rennebohm’s concerns about Wisconsin’s failure to invest the state’s money to earn long-term interest, and he was among the leaders during the research phase of SWIB’s creation. Despite only serving as state treasurer for a little over a year, Sonderegger’s legacy lives on today through SWIB.

John L. Sonderegger

Like Roy Kubista, John Lawton was a crucial figure in the passage of the bill that created SWIB. Lawton represented municipal and local employees in Wisconsin, so his main concern was ensuring public employees had sufficient pension funds when it came time for them to retire. Therefore, Lawton understood that funds needed to be invested in vehicles that would guard against inflation and produce an adequate return on investment. Lawton worked alongside John C. Lobb and Kubista to ensure the bill was passed in June 1951, protecting the future of the employees he represented.

John Lawton

After completing the research phase of the creation of SWIB, John C. Lobb contacted Roy Kubista, who represented the Wisconsin State Employees Association, to secure his support for the plan. Kubista was very concerned about the diminishing value of the contributions made by public employers and employees to the pension funds. In an article written by Kubista, he explained the need to invest public employees’ money to ensure they would have enough money to retire after accounting for inflation. Kubista was crucial to the passage of the bill, which was voted on and passed in June 1951 with overwhelming majorities in both houses of the state legislature.

Roy Kubista

Under the leadership of Gov. Oscar Rennebohm and State Treasurer John L. Sonderegger in the late 1940s, John C. Lobb was appointed to head a project to research how to invest the state’s money to earn interest. Lobb ultimately recommended the creation of SWIB to manage the funds for state and local governments, plus the pension funds for public employees. Lobb’s proposal addressed two major issues: Earning interest on the state’s cash balances and maximizing investment returns for public employees and teachers. Following the inception of SWIB in 1951, Lobb was appointed as one of the three commissioners responsible for investing the funds.

John C. Lobb