Executive Summary: Vanguard’s Board of Trustees is being rebuilt, with 10 of its 14 trustees having joined since 2021 and another coming on in February. The longest-serving trustees are heavily invested in the funds they oversee, while most newcomers have only a handful of index funds under their belt.
Mutual fund directors are either not being paid nearly enough for what they should be doing—or far too much for what they actually do.
– Jack Bogle, SmartMoney, July 2012
Vanguard’s board is being rebuilt.
André Perold, Vanguard’s longest-serving trustee, retired in June. At year-end, Mark Loughridge, the board’s first nonexecutive chairman, steps down, and Ken Jacobs, who joined in February, will take his place. When former BMW chief Oliver Zipse arrives in February 2027, 11 of the 14 trustees will have joined since 2021.
That turnover at the top has forced me to change the question I ask every year. It’s not only whether Vanguard’s trustees are eating their own cooking. It’s whether the new board eats like the old one.
So far, with two notable exceptions, it doesn’t. None of the four longest-serving trustees owns fewer than seven Vanguard funds, and together they have at least $4.7 million invested. The nine independent trustees who joined since 2021 have a little less between them, $4.6 million, and five of them own four funds or fewer.
Of course, the newcomers have had less time to fill their plates. Tara Bunch shows what’s possible: She owned one Vanguard fund at the end of 2022 and has six figures invested in each of 10 of them today. The question is whether the rest of the new guard follows her lead.
Reading the Menu: How Trustee Ownership Is Disclosed
For something so important to fiduciary responsibility and governance, finding this information is harder than it should be. Vanguard reports trustee holdings in bits and pieces across dozens of filings, each on its own fiscal-year schedule and with a significant time lag. I do the heavy lifting every year, compiling the information and reporting it so you don’t have to.
Still, the SEC’s disclosure rules are sorely lacking. Trustees don’t report exact balances or anything even close. They only have to slot each holding into one of five broad ranges:
- $0
- $1–$10,000
- $10,001–$50,000
- $50,001–$100,000
- Over $100,000
That last bucket doesn’t tell us much. Six figures is real money, but Vanguard’s trustees arrive at their task with substantial wealth, plus Vanguard pays each independent trustee between $350,000 and $525,000 (as of 2025) for their service.
When I estimate a trustee’s total investment in Vanguard funds, I take a conservative approach by using the low end of each range. For the $50,001–$100,000 bucket, I pencil in $50,001, and for “over $100,000” I use $100,001. Think of it as the bare minimum each of the funds’ stewards has riding alongside us as shareholders.
Why It Matters
Vanguard’s trustees aren’t figureheads. Their job is to look out for us. They approve each fund’s advisory contracts and fees, hire and fire the outside firms that run Vanguard’s active funds and sign off on fund launches, mergers and closures.
At Vanguard, the role carries even more weight. The funds own the firm, so there are no outside shareholders and no stock price to hold its leadership to account. The trustees, all of whom also sit on Vanguard’s board of directors, are the check.
When trustees have their own money in the funds, those decisions affect their wallets the same way they affect ours. That’s why I dig this out every year.
The Scorecard
The first table gives a high-level snapshot: when each trustee joined the board, the total compensation they’ve received for their service through 2025, the number of Vanguard funds they own and my estimate of their minimum investment.
Trustees' Commitment to Vanguard Funds
| Started | Total Comp. | Minimum Invested | # of Funds Owned | |
| Peter F. Volanakis | 2009 | $4.8 million | $1.9 million | 20 |
| Mark Loughridge | 2012 | $4.8 million | $1.4 million | 15 |
| Tara Bunch | 2021 | $1.5 million | $1.1 million | 15 |
| Lubos Pastor | 2024 | $755,000 | $1.0 million | 11 |
| Sarah Bloom Raskin | 2018 | $2.8 million | $910,010 | 10 |
| Salim Ramji | 2024 | – | $860,015 | 15 |
| Kenneth Jacobs | 2026 | – | $600,006 | 6 |
| Scott C. Malpass | 2012 | $3.9 million | $510,007 | 7 |
| Grant Reid | 2023 | $943,572 | $500,005 | 5 |
| John Murphy | 2025 | $380,000 | $310,004 | 4 |
| Rebecca Patterson | 2025 | $350,833 | $300,003 | 3 |
| Barbara Venneman | 2025 | $350,833 | $300,003 | 3 |
| David Hunt | 2026 | – | $300,003 | 3 |
| David A. Thomas | 2021 | $1.6 million | $210,003 | 3 |
| Note: Total compensation since joining the board through 12/31/2025. Ownership data as of 12/31/2025 where available. Sorted by minimum amount invested. Source: Vanguard and The IVA | ||||
The 11 independent trustees with pay data have collected about $22.2 million in board compensation through 2025. Their combined minimum stake is about $8.5 million. Lubos Pastor is the only one whose investment floor exceeds his total pay.
It isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, since my minimums most likely understate their holdings and their pay is pre-tax, but it puts the numbers in perspective.
The next table breaks things down further, showing how many funds each trustee holds in each disclosure bucket.
Breakdown By Bucket
| Total Funds | Over $100,000 | $50,001 - $100,000 | $10,001 - $50,000 | $1 - $10,000 | $0 | |
| Peter F. Volanakis | 20 | 19 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 193 |
| Mark Loughridge | 15 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 198 |
| Tara Bunch | 15 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 198 |
| Lubos Pastor | 11 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 202 |
| Sarah Bloom Raskin | 10 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 203 |
| Salim Ramji | 15 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 198 |
| Kenneth Jacobs | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 207 |
| Scott C. Malpass | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 206 |
| Grant Reid | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 208 |
| John Murphy | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 209 |
| Rebecca Patterson | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 210 |
| Barbara Venneman | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 210 |
| David Hunt | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 210 |
| David A. Thomas | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 210 |
| Note: Ownership data as of 12/31/2025 where available. Source; Vanguard and The IVA | ||||||
With those two tables in hand, let’s look at each trustee’s plate.