Michael Bell
Trustee Member
Departments
- Board of Trustees
Bio
Prior to his retirement in June 2019, Mr. Bell worked for Callan LLC where he helped build and then manage the firm’s over $20 billion of institutional investment portfolios for endowments, foundations, and pension plans. To achieve their investment goals, he worked with a variety of external investment management firms, trustee-custodians, auditors, and cash management and transition managers; and he was particularly focused on Callan’s legal, compliance, risk management, audit, tax, and insurance matters as they related to the firm’s investment management activities. Mr. Bell also provided operational, marketing, and business expertise. Mr. Bell was a shareholder of the firm until his departure.
Mr. Bell came to Callan from the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) where he worked as its Equities Senior Investment Officer and had overseen the growth of the APFC’s global equities position to $14 billion, an increase from 35% to 53% of the APFC’s investment portfolio. He has also held various marketing positions during a prior career direction. During that time his employers included a computer services company, a manufacturer, a real estate holding firm, and an advertising agency.
Mr. Bell has strong ties to Loyola and New Orleans. He grew up on campus as his father, Tom Bell, was a journalism professor for 28 years, and his family is the sponsor of the Ralph “Tom” Bell scholarship. Additionally, his daughter, mother, and sister are graduates of Loyola. Mr. Bell graduated from Louisiana State University with a B.A. in Journalism and he later earned an M.B.A. from the University of Alaska Southeast.
A current resident of Niwot, Colorado, Mr. Bell has lived in the South, Midwest, Northeast, West, and Alaska. He enjoys fly fishing and adventuring with his wife, retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain Virginia K. Holtzman-Bell, whom he met while attending Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans. Some of their more recent trips include hiking and fly fishing in Iceland and the Dolomite Mountains in northeastern Italy, and driving their EarthRoamer Xpedition vehicle from Colorado to the shores of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska and back, a 77-day, 12,000-mile adventure. Mr. Bell and his wife have two children.