Ashley Baum leads Special Opportunities for the investment division of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), a $200+ billion pension plan serving the educators of Texas. Special Opportunities is a 7-person cross-asset team Baum founded in 2013 to opportunistically deploy capital in areas the Trust might otherwise miss. She began her TRS career in external private markets, focusing on private equity, real estate, and special situation/credit investments. Baum also served as chief of staff to then-CIO Britt Harris. Before joining TRS in 2007, she worked in transaction services for PricewaterhouseCoopers and in accounting policy at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Baum is a CFA charterholder and a CPA licensed in Texas. She was recently named one of the Most Influential Women in Investment Management by Institutional Investor and lives in Austin with her husband and 3 children.