Polly Shouse
Mary Catherine “Polly” Shouse is an amazingly innovative thinker and visionary senior manager with wide-ranging expertise in global institutional and personal asset management. As Senior Investment Advisor to The Mid-Continent Companies’ Employee Benefits Practice, she is backed by nearly four decades of unparalleled expertise in asset allocation strategy.
Renowned as a true pioneer of investment management, Polly’s professional center of gravity is with Mellon Capital Management (MCM) in San Francisco, where she served as a co-founder and Executive Vice President from 1983 to 2008. Under her direction, MCM grew start-up assets to more than $200 billion. With MCM, Polly serviced major institutional investors in the United States, while also securing MCM’s first clients in Switzerland and Bermuda, blazing new trails through asset allocation across multiple currencies. She was also the first investment manager to arbitrage S&P 500 Stock Index Futures for an ERISA client and a public fund client.
Prior to her storied tenure with MCM, Polly served as Assistant Vice President and Senior Vice President with Wells Fargo Investment Advisors, where the Index Fund Group was the first to create and manage index funds in the world and under the Bank Commingled Fund structure. Many of the Wells Fargo Index Funds launched by Polly’s team now reside with BlackRock. Polly’s impressive professional background also includes work with Fairchild Semiconductor as a scientific programmer in computer-aided design. At present, in addition to working in tandem with The Mid-Continent Companies, Polly is Principal of Hickory Ridge Associates, LLC and Director of Global Asset Allocation for Chilton Capital Management in Houston.
A frequent public speaker on investment strategy, Polly is well entrenched in community work. She is on the Investment Subcommittee to the Board of CHRISTUS Health. She has served as an advisor to Yes Prep Public Schools and the Index Business Association. She has also volunteered in fundraising efforts for Memorial Hermann Cardiac Department and the Houston Cizik Eye Clinic of Memorial Hermann Hospital and The University of Texas.
Polly is a graduate of Stanford University and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.