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Group 29829

Dakota Live! Call 284

September 18, 2026

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11:00 a.m. EST Call 2:00 p.m. EST Call
Group 29845

284

On Dakota Live! 284

Christopher Vella, Chief Investment Officer, BNY Advisors

Cover all institutional accounts in the New York City Metro Area

Receive a detailed breakdown of Russell Investments

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Key Account Highlights Russell Investments

New York City

Russell Investments operates as a Consultant with a specialized focus as a DC Consultant. The firm is headquartered at 1301 2nd Avenue, 18th Floor, Seattle, WA, and serves the Seattle metro area. Founded in 1936, Russell Investments is a global investment management and advisory firm providing multi-asset solutions, outsourced CIO services, portfolio management, and manager research through an open-architecture approach. Its investment focus is primarily on North America, especially the United States, offering diversified asset classes and customized investment strategies for long-term growth and risk management.

Russell Investments manages an AUM of $377 billion. The firm’s platform includes two main opportunities: Institutional Consulting, which advises on over $2 trillion in assets under advisement with a small discretionary portion, and a Discretionary OCIO program where proprietary portfolio managers construct multi-manager portfolios through mutual funds and model delivery. The firm employs a centralized ratings system for approved managers, integrating ESG considerations into its evaluation process. Key contacts oversee private markets multi-manager funds, hedge funds, and alternative portfolios, supporting a comprehensive range of investment strategies and client services.

Allocator Interview Highlights

Christopher Vella
Chief Investment Officer, BNY Advisors

In this role, Chris leads BNY Advisors, an investment team focused on delivering solutions for intermediary and institutional clients, with responsibility for more than $175 billion in client assets on a global basis. The team of roughly 80 investment professionals spans global macro and asset allocation, manager research, and private market investments.

Chris’s career in manager research and multi-asset investing spans more than three decades. He began at SEI Investments, where he spent close to six years focused on international and emerging markets equity manager research, before becoming one of the founding members of Goldman Sachs’s external manager business, where he led the international and emerging markets equity team.

A manager-research specialist by background, Chris has spent his career evaluating, selecting, and overseeing external managers across global equities, fixed income, real assets, and alternatives. That allocator’s perspective—focused on asset allocation, manager selection, and portfolio construction rather than individual security picking—has defined his approach throughout his career.

He then spent nearly two decades at Northern Trust, where he served as Global Director of Manager Research and, ultimately, as Chief Investment Officer of the firm’s $75 billion Multi-Manager Investments business—overseeing investment strategy, manager selection, and portfolio construction for institutions, foundations, endowments, and high-net-worth families.

Chris joined BNY in 2023 as Chief Investment Officer for Investor Solutions and was named Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of BNY Advisors in January 2024. His work sits at the intersection of manager research, asset allocation, and portfolio construction—designing and managing the model portfolios and custom solutions that BNY delivers to advisors, RIAs, wirehouses, family offices, and institutional clients.

Chris earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, magna cum laude, with a minor in Applied Mathematics from Lehigh University, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts.

chris vella_bny advisors

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