2025 Honorary Degree Candidate & Commencement Speaker
Rukaiyah Adams,
Honorary Doctorate of Public Service
Since January 2023, Rukaiyah Adams has served as chief executive officer of the 1803 Fund, which was created by Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, to invest in North Portland's Albina neighborhood, seeks to grow shared prosperity through the alignment of financial investments and investments in community-based organizations.
Throughout her career, Adams has been leading the field of socially responsible investing. Through August 2022, Adams was chief investment officer at Meyer Memorial Trust, one of the largest charitable trusts in the Pacific Northwest. She was responsible for leading all investment activities to ensure the long-term financial strength of the organization. Throughout her tenure as CIO, Meyer increased assets managed by diverse managers by more than 3x and assets managed by women managers increased by 10x, proving that hiring diverse managers is not a concessionary practice.
Before joining Meyer, Adams ran the $6.5 billion capital markets fund at The Standard, then a publicly-traded company. At The Standard, she oversaw trading desks that included bond strategies, preferred equities, derivatives and other risk mitigation strategies.
From 2017-2020 Adams was chair of the Oregon Investment Council, the board that manages approximately $100 billion of public pension and other assets for the State of Oregon. During her tenure as chair, the Oregon state pension fund was among the top-performing public pension funds in the United States.
She currently serves on the boards of the Albina Vision Trust, the Self Enhancement, Inc. Foundation, Oregon Health and Science University Foundation, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, where she is also the current chair. Adams also serves on the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
Originally from Portland where she attended Catlin Gabel School, Adams earned a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College, a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.