Erik Carleton is a director of pension investments at Textron Inc., a $13.4 billion-revenue industrial conglomerate. Carleton manages the global fixed income and public equity investments of the Textron Defined Benefit Plan. He is in charge of the manager selection within public equities, fixed income, currencies and derivatives. Like many institutional portfolios, Textron’s defined benefit plan underwent a transition from investing heavily in index equities and fixed income to investing in actively-managed funds. In this interview, Carleton discusses Textron’s shift in its investing strategy, how he selects fund managers and the challenges facing corporate pension investors currently. Mr. Carleton was recently named on Trusted Insight’s 2017 Top 30 Corporate Investment Office Rising Stars.