Investment Funds Committee

Kenneth Lay is Senior Managing Director of The Rock Creek Group, an asset management firm based in Washington D.C. that manages globally diversified portfolios of public and private assets for about 50 major institutional investors. In addition to his strategic and managerial responsibilities in the firm, he works with international institutions and NGOs in efforts to develop new approaches to increasing the scale and reducing the cost of financing for global public goods.

Before moving to Rock Creek at the end of 2010, Mr. Lay spent 28 years at the World Bank. During his Bank career, he served as Treasurer and Deputy Treasurer and in various positions in Treasury’s capital markets team. He also served as a country director in Latin America and Eastern Europe and as head of the Bank’s financial sector practice. Earlier in his career he was a lawyer with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, heading its Branch of Corporation Finance Enforcement and representing the agency in investigations and in litigation in administrative tribunals and the federal courts.

Mr. Lay holds a BA from Dartmouth College, a JD from the George Washington University, the CFA designation and active membership in the State Bar of California. He is a trustee of the Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy, a member of the Steering Committee of the Northern Laramie Range Alliance and chairs the independent financial experts committee for the Non-Grant Instruments program of the Global Environment Facility. Since 1993 he has supervised his family’s ranch in Converse County, Wyoming.

Tom Chapman serves on the Investment Funds Committee for the Wyoming State Treasurer’s Office. Mr. Chapman is also a trustee of the Wyoming Retirement System and is chair of its Investment Committee. He is a principal with Teewinot Partners in Jackson Wyoming. Additionally, Tom is a founder and partner for Valparaiso Investment Fund in Singapore. Previously, Tom was a founding member of Colony Capital’s Asian real estate business, based in Singapore. He also worked at Tiger Management in New York. He started his career at Tudor Investment Corporation as a proprietary global macro trader in London. Tom currently serves on the Research Committee of JDRF having served on its International Board and Executive Committee. Mr. Chapman serves as a board observer with ViaCyte Inc.

He is chair of the Investment Committee of the Francis Parker School endowment in San Diego. He currently serves on the Board of the Institute for Arts and Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Tom received his BA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his MBA from Columbia Graduate School of Business.

Cecilia Herbert is a board member and immediate past chair of Blackrock’s iShares Exchange Traded Funds, is on the board of WNET (New York’s public broadcasting system), and chairs the Finance Committee of Stanford Health Care. Her professional background includes 17 years doing international lending and corporate finance at JP Morgan in New York and San Francisco. She retired as managing Director of Morgan’s San Francisco office which covered the 13 western states for Morgan.  Over the last 25 years she has served on 6 mutual fund boards, chairing audit, performance and nominating committees.  Cecilia holds a BA in economics from Stanford University and an MBA in Finance from Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Cecilia has served on numerous educational, social service and healthcare boards, including serving as President of the board of Catholic Charities CYO, one of San Francisco’s largest social service organizations.  In Jackson, she is a board member of the Center for the Arts and the Senior Center of Jackson Hole and is on the Finance Committee of the Community Foundation.  She is a member of the International Women’s Forum of New York and of San Francisco.

Cecilia and her husband Jim live in Jackson, and have 3 adult children and 4 grandchildren. They enjoy skiing, hiking, theater and renovating real estate.

Doug is the Managing Partner of Slewgrass Partners, LLC.  Slewgrass Partners is an investment firm focused on public equities, growth equity for early-stage companies and real estate.  Prior to founding Slewgrass in 2017, Doug was the Co-Managing Partner of Standard Pacific Capital, a Global Long/Short Equity hedge fund.   He joined Standard Pacific in 1998 as a Principal responsible for the Firm’s investments in software/services, fintech and emerging markets.  Doug served as Managing Partner and Co-Portfolio Manager of the Global Fund from 2005-2016 and of the Global Concentrated Fund from 2014-2016. 

Aside from managing Standard Pacific, Doug has personally made over 40 investments in private, growth companies over the last 20 years, primarily in the software, consumer, media and financial technology sectors.   Doug currently serves on the Board of Directors of Acuity Brands (NYSE: AYI), Foundation Windpower, Paravision.ai and Talkmap.  Doug is also an advisor to several private technology companies. 

Doug started his career in New York in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking division as an analyst in the Real Estate and Capital Market Groups in New York and Hong Kong.  Doug received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Finance and International Business from Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  He served on Georgetown University’s Board of Regents from 2010-16 and was an adjunct professor of finance at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business from 2017-1018.   Doug is also the Chairman emeritus of St. Mary’s Medical Center Foundation Board.

Sam Masoudi has 25 years of financial industry experience. He has been the CIO for the Wyoming Retirement System since December 2013. Prior to that, he served as a Managing Director of Tulane University’s endowment fund for five years. He was a founder and portfolio manager for eight years at the hedge fund Silver Peak.

Sam’s other investment experience includes three years at Veronis Suhler Stevenson (private equity fund) as a director, and four years as an assistant vice president in real estate investment banking at PaineWebber and Kidder Peabody, two New York based investment banks.

Sam received his B.S. in Finance and Investing from Babson College. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations. He was born and raised in Denver, CO.

Bob Nicholas was born and raised in Wyoming. He obtained his undergraduate and law degree from UW. He has served in the Wyoming legislature since 2011. Currently, he is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.