The Mutual Fund & ETF Awards – which recognize the best examples of performance, innovation, marketing and growth in fund industry – are coming back to New York on June 15, 2023.
Winners will be announced at an evening ceremony at 583 Park Ave.
We are proud to present the shortlist of nominated luminaries in each of four categories:
- Trustee of the Year
- Small Board Trustee of the Year
- Newcomer Trustee of the Year
- Independent Counsel of the Year
Below you’ll find short descriptions of our nominees among fund directors who have served on their boards for five years or fewer:
Newcomer Trustee of the Year
Chris Cheesman, American Century Funds
Cheesman, 61, joined the board in 2019 and became audit committee chair in 2022. She has also sat on the fund performance review committee since 2019 and was on the governance committee from 2019 to 2021.
She is a former senior vice president and chief audit executive at AllianceBernstein, where she worked from 1999 to 2018.
Hugh Hurley, Oakmark Funds
Hurley, 58, joined the board in 2018 and was appointed to the contracts committee in 2019, succeeding Mindy Posoff as committee chair in 2023. He has also sat on the audit committee since 2021.
Prior to retiring in 2017, he was a managing director and global head of product strategy active equity at BlackRock, Inc., where he had worked since 2006. He had previously been head of product specialists at Merrill Lynch from 2000 to 2006.
Since 2020, he has also been an independent trustee of the HSBC Funds, where he leads the audit committee.
Liz Levy-Navarro, Wilshire Funds
Levy-Navarro, 60, joined the board in 2019 and became chair of the valuation committee in 2020. In her role as valuation chair, she led the board’s oversight of compliance with the valuation and derivatives rules.
She also sits on the board’s audit, nominating and investment committees.
She was CEO and co-founder of management consulting firm Orrington Strategies from 2002 to 2017. Prior to co-founding Orrington, she was practice leader and operating committee member at The Cambridge Group, a former management consulting subsidiary of Nielsen, from 1993 to 2002. Levy-Navarro has previously held senior roles at Capgemini Invent, Kearney, and AT&T.
She currently sits on the boards of Munich Re Americas and Eastside Distilling and has previously held board seats at AIG US Life Insurance, Burke Beverage, Inc., Andover State Bank, Gold Eagle Company, and Alper Services, an Alera Group Co.
Next: Independent Counsel of the Year
