On Jan. 17, the University of California’s Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the Regents, or UC Investments, announced a partnership with the Toigo Foundation to fund 20 fellowships for UC graduate students.

The Toigo Foundation, a leadership development program based in Oakland that supports business graduates, has been involved with the UC system and working with students for around 30 years, according to President and CEO of Toigo Nancy Sims.

“This was an opportunity for us to take a longstanding high value relationship just to a new dimension to be able to open it up… to a broader number of UC schools,” Sims said.

In a UC press release, UC Chief Investments Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher said that partnering with Toigo was an investment in “preparing young leaders” and furthering the financial industry.

“One of our goals at the university, and at UC Investments, is to grow talent and expand the pipeline of opportunities for UC students from all backgrounds,” said UC Regent Richard Sherman, chair of the Investments Committee, in the press release.  

The fellowships created by the partnership will help in that expansion of opportunities, Sherman added.

Toigo provides career management support, technical skills training and specialized programs such as ones for women in leadership, Sims said.

“Finance, especially principal investing, has many arduous structural barriers that make it difficult to break in,” said Jake Wamala in an email. “Organizations like Toigo are extremely important in providing pipelines of talented, diverse leaders to investment management careers.”

Wamala, a Berkeley Haas graduate and global research analyst at Aristotle Capital Management, is one of Toigo’s more than 110 UC graduates. Wamala noted in the email that through the foundation, he was exposed to more careers and mentors.

According to Wamala, the UC system is the “largest” facilitator of social mobility in California, that it “makes sense” for the university to work with business networks like Toigo.

“We are interested not only in individuals graduating from school going into the industry, but also hope that we are, through our support and programs, developing next generation leaders,” Sims said.