No. 42: Capitol Weekly’s Top 100

42. Marcie Frost

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, CalPERS, is having a good year and you’ll have to pardon CEO Marcie Frost if she crows a bit. Through mid-July, CalPERS reported 21.3% net return on investments for the previous 12-month period, and more than $469 billion in total assets. “Great returns,” as one top CalPERS official said, given that we’ve been plagued by a pandemic for the last year and a half when the initial outlook was grim and the early indications did not look good.  But those are remarkable numbers. CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund, is one of the most important financial institutions in the U.S., much less California, with nearly 2 million members. At the helm is Frost, who came to CalPERS in 2016. As CEO, Frost rides herd on three critical areas – pensions, health benefits and investments. Earlier, she was the top executive at Washington state’s retirement system and served in Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s cabinet, and worked on pension and investment issues in Washington state for 30 years.

Updated Aug. 25, 2021