Alpha Exchange

As Chairman and CEO, Zach Buchwald leads Russell Investments, a firm overseeing $370bln in client assets and celebrating its 90th anniversary in providing portfolio management services to institutions and individuals. Zach details the open-architecture model utilized at Russell, explaining how portfolios are constructed by combining best-of-breed managers and strategies across asset classes. He shares how these portfolios are managed through an outsourced chief investment officer framework, providing institutions with integrated portfolio construction, manager selection, and risk management. A central theme in our discussion is retirement, a large focus at Russell on behalf of its client base. Zach highlights the long-term shift from defined benefit pensions to 401(k) plans, and the structural and behavioral challenges individuals face in saving for retirement and the growing responsibility they now bear in planning. We discuss the power of compounding, the importance of staying invested through market vola