Ryan Walter

Ryan Walter is a Partner and Director of Institutional Advisory at Vistamark Investments. An accomplished institutional investment advisor, Ryan brings over 20 years of experience guiding endowments, foundations, healthcare organizations and retirement plan sponsors, delivering high-level counsel to both institutional and private clients.

Ryan began his career in 2005 as a Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch and then spent seven years at J.P. Morgan in equity trading and investment roles. In 2015 he joined Fiducient Advisors (formerly DiMeo Schneider & Associates) as a Senior Consultant, leading advisory relationships for a national client base and working closely with Matt Rice during Matt’s tenure as Chief Investment Officer. From 2022 to 2025 he was a Senior Consultant at NEPC, LLC. He joined Vistamark in 2025 and became a Partner in January 2026.

His work centers on the decisions that investment committees own: writing and updating the investment policy statement, setting a spending policy that balances today’s grants against tomorrow’s purchasing power, choosing an asset allocation and policy benchmark, hiring and replacing managers, and documenting each decision so the committee can show it acted prudently. He helps committees meet the prudence standards of UPMIFA for endowments and ERISA for retirement plans; for 401(k), 403(b) and defined benefit plan committees, the same discipline extends to menu design, manager oversight, asset-liability modeling and fee benchmarking.

Ryan co-leads the firm’s Foundations & Endowments and Retirement Plan practices with Matt Rice. A new relationship starts with a no-cost conversation with the committee chair or executive director, followed by a written assessment of the investment policy, spending policy, allocation, managers, fees and liquidity that the committee can act on whether or not it hires Vistamark. The engagement then moves to a tailored scope — OCIO, consulting or a defined project — and a standing cadence of committee meetings and reporting.

Ryan is known for a client-first philosophy and deep expertise in institutional governance, investment policy design, asset allocation, manager selection and fiduciary oversight. His guides for nonprofit boards include UPMIFA in Plain English, How Much Should an Endowment or Foundation Pay an Investment Advisor or OCIO, Beyond the Endowment: How Investment Governance Protects Nonprofit Missions and Charitable Giving After Recent Tax Law Changes.

Ryan holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Risk Management from The Ohio State University and the Series 7 and Series 66 securities licenses. He is based in Chicago.

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.