Verus, a Seattle-based investment consultancy, has expanded to the East Coast with a new Pittsburgh location. The office will be led by new addition Mark Brubaker, a seasoned investment consulting executive.
Verus was founded in 1986, and offers non-discretionary investment consulting as well as outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) services to large institutional clients, including endowments, foundations, and pension plans. The company also has offerings in portfolio risk advisory and private markets services.
The firm has offices in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The Pittsburgh locations expands the firm’s presence into the East Coast and Midwest. New office leader Mark Brubaker has spent much of his extensive career in Pittsburgh, and joins the firm as a managing director, senior consultant, and member of the management committee.
“Verus has a long history of serving clients east of the Mississippi, and we’ve wanted to expand our national presence for some time. Now that we have achieved that, we are more than gratified to have built this around such a talented and highly respected consultant,” said CEO Jeff Maclean.
Brubaker spent the last year as a managing director at PNC Institutional Asset Management, leading the OCIO business for the large clients segment. Before that he spent 23 years at Wilshire Associates, where he led the OCIO business. He also served on the investment committee and was on the board of directors from 2016-2019. During his time at Wishire, he supported some of the firm’s largest clients, including public pension plans, foundations, and hospitals.
Before that, Brubaker was a manager of pension investments at Westinghouse Electric Company, and an assistant VP at PNC Advisors. He holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a BA in economics from Yale University.
“I’m truly honored to help achieve an important milestone for Verus,” Brubaker said. “We plan to do a lot of exciting work for our clients in this office, and I look forward to working with the talented research and consulting teams at Verus.”
The firm also announced that its chief risk officer, Max Giolitti, would be relocating to the Pittsburgh office. Giolitti joined Verus in 2011, and has since worked to develop the firm’s risk framework. He was previously director of quantitative analysis and group risk manager at Microsoft, and director of asset allocation and risk at Alaska Permanent Fund.