William Atwood
On March 30, 2020 the Firefighter’s Pension Investment Fund retained William (Bill) Atwood as its Interim Executive Director. In 1984 Bill joined Investment Counselors Incorporated, an investment management firm headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, where he served as Vice President for Business Development. Bill joined the Illinois State Board of Investment (ISBI) in 2003 as its Executive Director. As Executive Director, Bill functioned as the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of ISBI, which is the fiduciary for $18.1 billion in pension assets for the Illinois State Employees’ Retirement Fund, the Illinois Judicial Retirement Fund, the Illinois General Assembly Retirement Fund, and the Illinois Power Agency. Under Bill’s leadership ISBI consistently exceeded its actuarially assumed rate of return of 7.0%; surpassed its portfolio benchmarks; and out-performed ISBI’s peer group of like-sized public funds. Further, ISBI became a national leader in areas related to diversity and corporate governance. In 2014 Bill was named outstanding Large Public Plan Manager of the Year by Institutional Investor Magazine. After leaving ISBI in 2018, Bill joined the Illinois Finance Authority where he led policy initiatives related to asset transfers and pension fund consolidation. In 2019, in his role at the Illinois Finance Authority, he assisted in drafting the Report of the Governor Pritzker’s Pension Fund Consolidation Feasibility Task Force and the preparation of SB 1300, which created the Firefighters’ Pension Investment Fund.
