The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) is currently looking for a new chief investment officer, following the resignation of current investment chief Ted Eliopoulos. Being considered heavily for the role is Ben Meng, China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) deputy chief information officer (CIO).

Ben Meng is an experienced CIO of the agency, in charge of more than $3 trillion in foreign reserves. He had some experience in the US, working with the California pension fund years back. Through WSJ, it is revealed that Meng was said not to have signed any job offers just yet. He further stated that he considered himself a US citizen, working as a foreign contractor with the Chinese agency. He declined to comment any further about his selection.

A former employee with CalPERS, Meng is expected to easily transition into the role. He was placed in charge of about $360 billion of assets of public workers such as firefighters and police workers in the state of California. Earlier in his career, Meng spent seven years with the firm previously before he joined the Chinese agency in 2015.

Meng's work has been highlighted in the People's Daily. Only two years after joining SAFE, the CIO's work has been highlighted and has been praised for bringing SAFE at the forefront of the international investors' community. However, Meng had been working as some sort of consultant-a senior technocrat-connected to the administration of SAFE with no managerial job.

Cai Xing Global noted that Meng has been designated to have no "classified nor important decision-making work" for SAFE. The CalPERS work appears to be suited for Meng, who has been a veteran Wall Street investor and has had experiences with banks such as Barclays, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley in the past.

There are a lot of questions that Ben Meng is expected to provide answers to may questions surrounding the firm's pension portfolio. It's largely because of what the current chief, Ted Eliopoulos, had done; the soon-to-be-replaced chief had opted to move away from risky investments and wanted to keep to safe investments, the better to safeguard the fund from any downturn.

The next moves by the firm are expected to be monitored very closely, as the system is seen as a "bellwether" of sorts for trends related to investments. CalPERS, as well as other investment firms in the country, have been working to keep gaps from growing too large to control.