12th Annual Great Plains Institutional Forum 2026
Markets Group publishes this Minneapolis institutional forum for allocator-focused discussion across alternatives and portfolio strategy.
About this event
The 12th Annual Great Plains Institutional Forum is the region's leading conference for pension funds, insurance companies, foundations & endowments, hospital plans, sovereign wealth funds and consultants from throughout the region. The forum’s content is developed through hundreds of one-on-one meetings with the institutional investment community and the program's speaker faculty is primarily comprised of leaders in the sector across U.S. Great Plains region.
Our agenda covers asset allocation and protection, equity markets, fixed income, alternative investments, as well as an outlook of the financial markets and the global economy. This event is completely closed-door and invitation-only, and it is designed to enable genuine peer-to-peer learning and networking for the regional institutional community.
Source: organiser materialsKey discussion topics
- Navigating Markets in 2026: Investment Strategies and Macroeconomic Outlook:The financial landscape continues to evolve in an era marked by unprecedented global events. Investors are faced with the imperative challenge of constructing resilient portfolios in the face of economic shifts and market volatility.
- The Equity Calculation: Evaluating its Effect on Portfolios:The equities market faces substantial influence from earnings expectations, elections and policy considerations, sector institutional bets, slowing economies and interest rates. Will the rally continue?
- Building a Strong Strategy for Infrastructure Investments:In this session we focus on the world of tangible investments, where infrastructure plays a crucial role in building long-term investment returns.
- Gold & the Total Portfolio: The Oldest Asset in the New Investment Regime:Gold should not be defended as a commodity allocation, but as a non-credit asset whose role is to protect portfolio outcomes in the investment regime that has already begun — not the one that has ended. The case for gold is not about expected returns within a traditional optimizer; it is a portfolio-level response to the possibility that the dominant risks of the next decade are not diversifiable within the conventional stock, bond, and private-asset architecture.
- Fixed Income: Portfolio Positioning in a Changing Rate Environment:This panel will examine current fixed income market conditions and their implications for institutional portfolios. Panelists will discuss interest rate dynamics, yield opportunities, credit considerations, and portfolio construction strategies as pensions, endowments, foundations, hospital plans, insurance companies, and investment consultants navigate evolving economic and market conditions.
- Recognizing Emerging Markets’ Opportunities and Challenges:Understanding the dynamic landscape of emerging markets is crucial for allocators who want to explore the unique opportunities and challenges that come with investing in these regions. With global economic tides constantly shifting it's important to have a sound asset allocation strategy that includes emerging markets.
- Investments in Private Markets – How to Best Utilize Them:As investors search for additional sources of revenue and methods for portfolio diversification in the volatile and changing environment, alternatives stand out as an area of opportunities. The panel brings together leading alternatives investors and allocators to share the role private equity, private debt, venture capital and commodities plays in their portfolios and what they look for in managers to meet their objectives in these asset classes.
- Institutional Views on Private Credit’s Growing Portfolio Utility & Importance:An allocation to credit can offer higher risk adjusted returns, boost diversification, and provide new income streams, which is why it’s so important for investors to understand this rich opportunity set. Having outperformed public markets in recent years, how will credit markets fare in a low-yield environment where uncertainty and inflationary pressures cloud the economic outlook?
- Alternatives – Time to Shine:Interest rates stayed high as central banks around the work continued to fight inflation. Which alternatives offer the most meaningful diversification and how can the best managers be sourced?
- Navigating ESG - Considerations for a Successful Institutional Investment Strategy:Numerous institutional investors think asset managers should be more proactive in developing new ESG products. ESG has moved from being a niche consideration to a central component of strategic institutional investment. This panel will delve into the crucial role of ESG in shaping institutional investment strategies, offering expert insights on navigating this evolving landscape.
- Institutional Use of ETFs:Institutional investors are using ETFs in a variety of ways ranging from equitizing cash, to making tactical portfolio adjustments, and even as long-term, strategic holdings.
- Chief Investment Officer Roundtable:In this rare discussion amongst leading decision makers, learn where these allocators are leaning in, what’s been working, and their views on topical and future investment issues that will be changing the markets.
Organiser-published speakers
Featured speakers
NameSeniorityFirm / organisation
Karl AshleyChair, Board of TrusteesFernandina Beach Police Officers & Firefighters Pension Fund
Patrick MessmerMajorTampa Police Department
Al DeJesusRBC Dominion Securities
Who attends
- 150Pension funds
- 30Foundations
Event location
Minneapolis Institutional Forum for Asset Owners
Minneapolis Club729 2nd Ave SMN
Minneapolis
55402
United StatesView venue details