James Cowgill
LP
"James Nielsen is a Managing Director at Exeter Financial. James has served as the Chief Investment Officer of the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), with assets under management in excess of $7 Billion. James served as the Fund’s Assistant Administrator beginning in October 2001 until he was named its Chief Investment Officer in July 2004. As CIO, James led an efficiently run staff that internally managed the trading and investments of the plans assets, one of only a few public funds to accept this responsibility and cost effective structure. James directly negotiated private real estate and private equity transactions with operating partners, in addition to the responsibility of allocating and trading publically traded assets, and outperformed peer institutions and benchmarks during his tenure. James left PSPRS in October 2007 to pursue other interests in the private sector. Prior to joining PSPRS, James worked in the Venture Capital industry, served as a Law Clerk to U.S. Senator Jon Kyl and worked in Arthur Andersen’s Enterprise Group.
James has served on numerous boards of advisors to private equity and venture capital firms including Mid Ocean Partners, DAG Ventures, Valley Ventures and Droplet, Inc. He has been an active member of the Economic Club of Phoenix, the National Association of Public Pension Plan Attorneys (NAPPA), and the National Association of State Investment Officers (NASIO).
James earned a B.S. and Master’s Degree in Accountancy from Brigham Young University, where he served as the School of Accountancy’s class president and was awarded the School’s International Accounting Certificate. James also earned a law degree from Arizona State University. He is a CPA and an Active Member of the Arizona Bar and Inactive Member of the Utah Bar. James also holds the Uniform Investment Adviser Law (Series 65) license."