TIAA-CREF's Beams Leaves Fund Firm as Van Dolsen is Named Operating Chief

Maliz Beams, one of the highest- ranking women at TIAA-CREF, is leaving the firm, which oversees $426 billion in retirement assets.

Edward Van Dolsen, 52, was named chief operating officer and will assume Beams’s responsibilities, the New York-based firm said today in an e-mailed statement. Beams, 54, oversaw all of TIAA-CREF’s services for individual and institutional clients.

Beams, named among the top 25 non-bank women executives in finance last year by the American Banker magazine, joined TIAA- CREF in 2004 as the head of its wealth-management business. Before that, she was a partner and managing director at Zurich Scudder Investments.

“Under Maliz’ leadership, we’ve grown our individual and institutional businesses significantly despite these challenging economic times,” Roger Ferguson, the chief executive of TIAA- CREF said.

As part of a plan to make TIAA-CREF more “client- focused,” the firm said Marvin Adams will oversee a shared- services group that includes business support such as technology and operations.

TIAA-CREF, founded in 1918 as a pension fund for professors, is the largest provider of retirement plans for employees of academic, medical and research institutions. The firm also sells mutual funds and education-savings plans.

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Brennan in New York at mbrennan25@bloomberg.net; Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam in Boston at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net.