Meet Illinois' Newest Leader
By Daniel Sanchez Torres
From birth, it was clear that Joe Aguilar would possess the tenacity of hard work and commitment. Aguilar is the Chief Investment Officer for the Office of the Illinois State Treasurer and one of the youngest of his peers to hold such a role.
Born on the Northwest side of Chicago to Mexican-American parents his mother worked at a school district in computer programing while his father – who recently retired, and passed on the profession to his brother – spent his career as a union electrician. With his mix of white and blue-collar upbringing, it’s no surprise that Aguilar understood that hard work can beget opportunity and success.
His parents were invested in his and his brother’s education and made a move to Batavia, Illinois a suburb of Chicago. It was a small town, but it had a great public education system, which is exactly what his parents were looking to provide their children.
After Aguilar finished high school, he spent a stint at nearby Waubonsee Community College before transferring to Aurora University. While Aurora University may not be the typical university that comes to mind when thinking about getting an education in finance and investment management, Aguilar favored the smaller college setting because it allowed him to be close to home. He balanced a job throughout college and eventually graduated, becoming the first in his immediate family to gain a bachelor’s degree.
After graduation, Aguilar would go on to secure a full-time job at the Treasurer's Office in Illinois, but his ambition continued and he made the decision to attend the University of Miami in Florida in a part-time online hybrid program and received his Masters in Finance, graduating as one of the top students of his class.
When reflecting on why Aguilar would pursue finance as a career, he recalls a conversation with a friend who asked a similar question and how it unlocked a memory of how he fell in love with numbers. “I used to read the paper,” he says. “I would always read the box scores of sporting events…and I loved those numbers and dissecting them.”
As he recalls the conversation it unlocks another memory, “I watched the financial news networks [CNBC] – still do. And it fascinated me seeing the tickers go by. Wondering what that meant. What is this? And then, to come to find out these are financials, and it’s part of the world of finance. That’s what really sealed my fate.”
“I’m extremely lucky, that this was my first career aspiration. And that it really took off for me and just snowballed into a life of continuous learning,” Aguilar says. There’s a clear excitement for what he does.
Aguilar understands that success does not happen in a vacuum, though. He is quick to name-check Margarita Perez, who worked at Fortaleza Asset Management, Inc. at the time for offering him the opportunity to intern going into his senior year of university.
The internship at Fortaleza turned into a full-time role in operations when he graduated. While Fortaleza may not be a typically blue-chip company compared to the positions at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs his peers got, the small size of the organization proved to be a significant advantage to Aguilar.
While his peers quickly chose specializations in their career paths, Aguilar had the intimacy of a small company to deeply understand how the organization works and expand his skill set beyond just his initial interests. He was able to learn about being an equity analyst reviewing companies alongside doing more fundamental research. Developing and honing skills that many of his peers were unable to.
The decision to start at Fortaleza was a significant building block for Aguilar, and after Fortaleza, he would go on to work for the Treasurer of Illinois. The role came after Michael Frerichs was elected to the Illinois State Treasurer when an upstart Chief Investment Officer, Rodrigo Garcia, was empowered to fulfill Treasurer Frerichs’ vision. The duo was invested in building a team that looked like the state of Illinois: Black, Latino, Asian, and white. Through the trust of Frerichs and Garcia, Aguilar was made Deputy Director of Investment Analysis and Due Diligence.
While capable of the role, the position was in the public sector handling a broader range of public market as well as private equity investments, which were different from the private sector work that he had been doing. Aguilar returned to the root of what his parents taught him and put in the hard work to engulf himself in learning about the new asset classes. He was able to play a critical role in standing up new investment programs and launch a third on behalf of his constitutes in the municipalities of the state of Illinois.
As he continued to produce positive results, he continued being offered opportunities to grow and would eventually become Director of the Division and, in July 2021, become Acting Chief Investment Officer.
As Chief Investment Officer, Aguilar oversees a team of eight and administers approximately $18 billion across five different portfolios. In addition to this, he oversees the stewardship activities and the sustainable investment strategies of the office with a focus on diversity and inclusion.
In his role, Aguilar is focused on managing the money that typically comes to the state via tax revenues, state administered fees, and invests them across different pools of assets. He’s also focused on participant-driven programs which are programs that are accessible and available to the citizens of the state of Illinois who are looking to save for the long-term.
In discussing the participant-driven programs, it’s clear that it is something that Aguilar is proud of. From programs that help people save for college, save for disability-related expenses, or retirement plans, the programs are
focused on providing sustainability for their constituents and the ability to plan and enjoy the future.
Aguilar notes that there are 3 goals he has in mind as he fulfills his duties: “Number one, we want to make a return on the investments we make for the constituents of the state of Illinois. Number two and three are colinear goals. The second goal is supporting and spurring economic development across the state of Illinois. So what that means is creating jobs, helping businesses stay within the state, so retaining them, attracting businesses to locate here expand their physical footprint within the state of Illinois. And the third goal of this - this is what makes us extremely unique - in fostering a more diverse and inclusive venture capital ecosystem.”
There is a clear-cut understanding that Aguilar is expected to have positive returns on the investments he makes on behalf of the constitutes. But his approach points to social awareness of who his constitutes are. Not dissimilar from his own family and upbringing. Hardworking citizens with an interest in a stable and prosperous future.
Aguilar plays a critical role in making sure that the Treasury Department doesn’t miss out on opportunities that could have a prosperous return. And that includes being “a little bit creative and critical thinking of strategy and that we don’t get caught up in the institutional investor norm where we focus only on the short horizon.”
In reflecting on his job and it’s clear that Aguilar himself used a bit of creative and critical thinking strategy to get to where he is. He’s keenly aware that his academic background looks different than his peers, but he used that as a tailwind to motivate his ambition and hone in on his mission: “My mission is to ensure that we are prudently allocating our capital on behalf of the State of Illinois. And that we're ensuring that our constituents have the opportunity to invest these dollars to have a true impact in our local economy, our local communities. And when I think about myself as a Latino, in a position of leadership, like every other Latino, Latina, African American should be doing when they are in this leadership role, is they should use this to effect change.”