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Cliffwater executive takes on private-markets role at Howard Hughes

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Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Joon Choi, Cliffwater LLC, Greg DeNinno
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  • Choi joined Howard Hughes Medical Institute in October
  • Worked at Cliffwater since 2012
  • Succeeds DeNinno, who moved into managing director role

Joon Choi has left consulting firm Cliffwater LLC to join Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a director of private investments, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Choi has added the new role to her LinkedIn profile, which suggests she started this month. Spokesmen for the medical institute and Cliffwater did not return requests for comment.

Choi succeeds Greg DeNinno, who was promoted to managing director from director of private markets. DeNinno succeeded longtime private-investments chief Mark Barnard, who stepped down from his role with the $18.2 billion endowment fund in June.

DeNinno had focused on European private equity, venture capital and small-cap buyouts, the institute said in a prior statement. It’s not clear whether Choi will continue to do that.

The private-markets team oversees a portfolio of global PE, VC, real assets and natural resources.

The fair value of the institute’s PE investments stood at about $3.8 billion as of Aug. 31, 2015, with about $1.7 billion of unfunded commitments at the time, according to the institute’s audited fiscal year report.

Prior to Cliffwater, Choi was a senior director at Oppenheimer Asset Management from 2007 to June 2011, according to her LinkedIn profile. She also worked as an analyst/associate at Hamilton Lane and as an analyst at ATX Communications.

Action Item: Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s financials: https://www.hhmi.org/about/financials

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