Our Team > Jason T. Thomas, PH.D., CFA

Jason joined Aspiriant in 2005 as Chief Investment Officer, with more than 12 years of institutional investment management and capital markets experience. He serves as the Chair of the Investment Committee and oversees all aspects of the firm’s investment activities including development of capital markets expectations and asset allocation, manager selection and monitoring, and portfolio construction methodology. Jason also serves as a member of the Aspiriant Managing Committee.

Jason serves on the board and Audit Committee of the Pint Size Corporation, a distributor of frozen foods throughout the Hawaiian Islands.  He has been an active participant on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Investment Consulting.  Jason’s research interests cover a broad range of topics including investment manager structure optimization, the use of statistical process control to monitor investment managers, and the impact of regulatory structure on the performance and stability of financial markets.

Prior to joining Aspiriant, Jason was a vice president at Wilshire Associates, an institutional investment consulting firm. He acted as chief economist for Wilshire’s fund-of-funds business, which directed client assets of over $10 billion, and recommended strategies for advisory clients of the consulting division, including some of the largest and most sophisticated public and corporate pension plans in the United States, with total assets of more than $1.5 trillion. Over the course of his tenure, Jason was lead portfolio manager for a wide range of asset classes.

Before to joining Wilshire, Jason was part of the private wealth management group of Goldman Sachs, where he managed investments and advised ultra high-net-worth clients on a range of wealth management issues including concentrated stock risk, trust and estate planning, and executive stock options. Among Jason’s clients were senior executives of large public companies and start-up ventures, as well as multi-generational family groups.

Jason began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as a regional economist, forecasting economic variables and contributing research for use in monetary policy recommendations, ultimately serving as Manager of Economic Affairs at the Los Angeles branch.

A Chartered Financial Analyst, Jason earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Southern California and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Prior to graduate school, Jason completed both BA and MA degrees in Economics in just four years at the University of Southern California, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.