Cheryl D. Alston is the Executive Director of the Employees’ Retirement Fund of the City of Dallas, Texas (“ERF”), a $3.1 billion pension plan for the City’s civilian employees. Cheryl began her term as Executive Director in October 2004 and provides leadership for the Fund’s staff in implementing the programs necessary to achieve the mission, goals and objectives established by the Board of Trustees. Cheryl also serves on the Board of CHRISTUS Health, a Catholic, faith based international health care system and serves as Chair of the investment committee and Vice-Chair of the Finance and Strategy committee.
In 2011, Cheryl was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Advisory Committee. The PBGC protects the retirement incomes of more than 44 million American workers in 27,500 private-sector defined benefit plans. In 2010, Cheryl was selected as one of the Rising Stars of Public Funds by the editors of Institutional Investor News as one of the up-and-coming professionals poised to be future leaders of the industry.
In addition to serving as Executive Director for the Fund, she is a member of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), the National Council of Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), the Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems (TEXPERS) and the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP). Cheryl serves as Vice-Chair and Treasurer of the Volunteer Center of North Texas and the Advisory Board of Texas Wall Street Women.
Cheryl has over twenty years of expertise in the financial services industry. She served as an Executive with CIGNA Retirement & Investment Services. Prior to CIGNA, Cheryl has served as a Corporate Banking Officer at Chase Global Services, providing investment banking services for Fortune 500 clients. Cheryl has an M.B.A. in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School at New York University and an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
