About Dr. Brian Leite
Dr. Brian Leite is a scholar-practitioner whose career spans senior institutional investment leadership, academic research, teaching, and advisory work. After two decades at Fidelity Investments, he now serves as an academic department chair and works with fiduciaries, institutional organizations, and retirement-plan stakeholders on investment governance, strategy, and decision-making.
From Fidelity's investment teams to the classroom
Brian joined Fidelity Investments in 2000 and spent two decades there. He began managing senior investment consultants who served Fidelity's largest defined-contribution clients, work that touched roughly $600 billion in administered assets. He went on to lead Fidelity's institutional portfolio-management teams across equity, high-income, and asset allocation; ran the firm's consultant-relations effort across North America; and, as Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Advisor, created and led the investment office for a new registered investment adviser.
He then earned a Doctor of Business Administration in finance at DePaul University and moved to Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, where he teaches Finance and is Director and Endowed Chair of the Jean and David W. Wallace Department of Business & Economics. The questions he took into the classroom are the ones he carries through his research and teaching: how institutional structures, investment design, and human decision-making shape financial outcomes.
Brian's first book
The Retirement Black Box
Decoding the Hidden Architecture of Target-Date Funds. Publishes January 5, 2027 from Advantage | Forbes Books.
Ways to work with Brian
How Brian Helps
Brian works with fiduciaries, institutional organizations, retirement-plan stakeholders, advisory firms, and professional audiences on investment governance, retirement strategy, and complex investment decision-making. Engagements range from focused governance work to strategic institutional consulting, executive education, and speaking.
01
Investment Governance & Retirement Strategy
Governance assessments, default-investment and QDIA oversight, fiduciary process, and retirement-plan decision-making. Specialized governance engagements may be conducted through Fiduciary Governance Advisors.
02
Strategic & Institutional Advisory
Selected consulting engagements involving retirement strategy, investment platforms, product architecture, distribution strategy, and broader institutional investment issues, sometimes undertaken in collaboration with strategic partners.
03
Education, Speaking & Media
Plain-language presentations for boards, committees, advisors, students, industry audiences, and media that translate investment research and industry complexity into practical insights.