Zach Buchwald, Chairman and CEO, Russell Investments

About this episode

Zach Buchwald discusses Russell Investments' approach to portfolio management and the challenges of retirement planning.

As Chairman and CEO, Zach Buchwald leads Russell Investments, a firm overseeing $370bln in client assets and celebrating its 90th anniversary in providing portfolio management services to institutions and individuals. Zach details the open-architecture model utilized at Russell, explaining how portfolios are constructed by combining best-of-breed managers and strategies across asset classes. He shares how these portfolios are managed through an outsourced chief investment officer framework, providing institutions with integrated portfolio construction, manager selection, and risk management. A central theme in our discussion is retirement, a large focus at Russell on behalf of its client base. Zach highlights the long-term shift from defined benefit pensions to 401(k) plans, and the structural and behavioral challenges individuals face in saving for retirement and the growing responsibility they now bear in planning. We discuss the power of compounding, the importance of staying invested through market volatility, and the role that portfolio design can play in helping investors avoid costly behavioral mistakes. While the 401(k) structure can work well when participants save early…

People in this episode

Host: Dean Curnutt

Guest: Zach Buchwald

Topics covered

• portfolio management
• retirement planning
• investment strategies
• behavioral finance
• 401(k) plans

Keywords

• portfolio construction
• investment management
• compounding
• market volatility
• asset allocation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Russell Investments

Places: United States

More episodes of Alpha Exchange

• Colin Lancaster, Global Co-Head of Discretionary Macro and Fixed Income at Schoenfeld Strategic Advisors · June 12, 2026 · 56 min
• Ronnie Wexler, Global Head of Equities Distribution, Barclays · June 2, 2026 · 59 min
• Robert Flatley, Founder & CEO TS Imagine · May 11, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Hari Krishnan, Head of Volatility Strategies at SCT Capital Management · April 28, 2026 · 60 min
• Robert Kaplan, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, and former President of the Dallas Fed · April 13, 2026 · 52 min
• Wayne Dahl, Co-Portfolio Manager, Oaktree Capital Management · April 7, 2026 · 52 min