CalPERS, the giant public pension system in California, has hired a Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer despite a massive funding shortfall and little evidence the new executive has investment experience. This piece looks at the hire, the stated role, the public statements from CalPERS leadership, and concerns about mixing DEI priorities with fiduciary responsibilities for roughly $555 billion in assets and millions of beneficiaries.

Largest CA Public Retirement Program Adds DEI Investing ‘Principles’ — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

California’s pension behemoth has a reported multi-billion-dollar shortfall, yet its leadership decided to add a high-level DEI position to the executive team. The new role carries a base salary of $221,580 and, according to public announcements, the appointee brings no finance or investment-management background to a system that stewards hundreds of billions in assets.

The appointee’s public profile emphasizes corporate purpose and inclusion rather than portfolio construction, risk management, or actuarial science. A LinkedIn-style description included the line: “Purpose-Driven Executive | Senior Vice President | Corporate Purpose Evangelist | Champion for Inclusion & Collaboration, ESG and Human Capital Strategy | Board Advisor | Inspiring Inclusive Innovation.”

CalPERS officially framed the hire as an effort to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion across the organization and with outside partners, and the announcement made clear the new officer will be on the executive team. That is a management decision, but when DEI work is described as collaborating with investment groups and advocating for “equity-driven investment strategies,” alarm bells should sound for anyone worried about fiduciary duty.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System announced Monday [January 5] that it has hired Shari Slate as its new Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer.

Slate, a Sacramento area resident, has spent nearly two decades helping large companies work toward a purpose-driven culture that considers the needs and experiences of all employees, customers, and other stakeholders. 

Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at CVS Health, whose businesses include not only CVS drugstores but also pharmacy benefits management and Aetna health insurance.

Prior to joining CVS, Slate was Chief Inclusion and Collaboration Officer and Senior Vice President at Silicon Valley giant Cisco Systems Inc., where she helped launch the Office of Inclusion and Collaboration in 2015.

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At CalPERS, Slate will drive the ongoing effort to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion across the organization and beyond with suppliers, contractors, and investment partners. She will be a member of the Executive Team and report directly to CEO Marcie Frost.

CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost offered high-minded language about trust, governance, and values when announcing the hire. Those words may comfort supporters of DEI in corporate settings, but the investment backdrop here is different: retirees and taxpayers rely on prudent, solely financial decision-making from a large public pension plan.

Shari brings the kind of leadership this moment calls for – connecting diversity, inclusion, and equity to trust, governance and our core values. She will help CalPERS continue to lead with our purpose, which is to deliver the best outcomes for the millions of people who depend on us for their retirement and health care benefits.

From a Republican perspective, injecting ideological or social-policy priorities into investment frameworks is a step away from classic fiduciary responsibility. The key question is whether “equity-informed” or “equity-driven” investment principles will be used to guide capital allocation decisions that are supposed to maximize risk-adjusted returns for beneficiaries.

A financial professional with three decades of experience in portfolio management would reasonably ask how a DEI executive without investing experience will help manage a $555 billion system operating with a steep deficit. Stakeholders deserve clarity on boundaries between organizational culture work and investment governance.

The statements released by the system suggest collaboration between DEI leadership and investment groups to “integrate DEI into financial decision-making” and to “ensure that CalPERS’ investment portfolio reflects its commitment to sustainability, social responsibility, and equitable outcomes.” Those phrases sound laudable until they potentially come into conflict with the pension fund’s duty to maximize returns for retirees and taxpayers.

Public pensions operate under legal and ethical obligations to beneficiaries. Mixing social goals into asset allocation can raise questions about whether the fund is prioritizing values over return, increasing exposure to sector biases, or narrowing the investment universe for nonfinancial reasons. Those are not abstract concerns when billions are at stake.

CalPERS can argue that diversifying perspectives and fostering inclusive governance supports better decision-making broadly, and that may be true in noninvestment contexts. Still, the link between DEI rhetoric and investment decision-making must be transparent and constrained by fiduciary standards, not left to broad promises about aligning investments with values.

Given the scale of the problem and the number of members depending on the system, asking for clear roles, limits, and accountability is not political correctness—it is prudent oversight. Beneficiaries do not benefit from well-intentioned experiments that expose their retirement savings to avoidable ideological risk.