.jpg)
Cheryl Eason, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), was named 2016 CFO of the Year Honoree in the large public agency category by the Sacramento Business Journal.
The award was presented yesterday to Eason during the publication's annual award ceremony that recognizes leaders in the financial industry from both public and private organizations around the Sacramento region.
"This is a well-deserved honor for Cheryl," said Doug Hoffner, CalPERS' Interim Chief Executive Officer. "It represents the tremendous insight and experience that Cheryl brings to the job. She has furthered CalPERS' efforts to increase transparency, improve risk management, and strengthen internal controls of our financial operations."
The award is based on job performance, the ability to resolve challenges, and create opportunities, and involvement within the community. Seventeen CFO honorees were selected for this year's award by a panel of independent judges.
The judges recognized Eason's accomplishments over a 12-month period that included:
- Leading a team that developed a Funding Risk Mitigation Policy that will lower the discount rate in years of good investment returns and reduce risk and volatility in the System.
- Reducing administrative and operating expenses in the CalPERS budget by 5.3 percent over the past three years.
- Instituting a Treasury Management Program designed to recognize the fiduciary duty owed to CalPERS members.
- Serving as the architect and steward of the enterprise risk and compliance programs.
- Hosting international CFO conferences in 2014 and 2015 that brought together CFOs from pension funds around the world and California to discuss best practices and innovation in finance.
- Receiving the distinguished Budget Presentation Award for both Fiscal Years 2014-15 and 2015-16, and the Award for Excellence in Government Finance for leadership on the Risk Mitigation Policy in 2016 from the Government Finance Officers Association.
"Cheryl's contributions to CalPERS have been recognized by her industry peers and serve as a model for other institutions," said Richard Costigan, Chair of the Finance and Administration Committee. "All of these efforts help ensure the long-term sustainability of the Pension Fund."
Eason is CalPERS' first CFO, and was hired in 2012.
Information about the award and the other CFO honorees is available on theSacramento Business Journal website (subscription required).
More information about Eason is available in her biography.
For more than eight decades, CalPERS has built retirement and health security for state, school, and public agency members who invest their lifework in public service. Our pension fund serves more than 1.8 million members in the CalPERS retirement system and administers benefits for nearly 1.4 million members and their families in our health program, making us the largest defined-benefit public pension in the U.S. CalPERS’ total fund market value currently stands at approximately $302 billion. For more information, visit www.calpers.ca.gov.
