George Upham Sauter

George U. "Gus" Sauter is noted as the head investment manager of Vanguard index funds from 1987 through 2003, and as the creator of Vanguard's exchange-traded funds.

Early life and education
Sauter was born in 1954 to Jean Upham and George Sauter in Mansfield Ohio.

At age eight, he started taking deposits and making loans for his Cleveland neighbors; he was eleven when he bought shares in the Cleveland Cavaliers. He earned an A.B. in economics from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago. In 1976 Sauter took his first job with Chiquita Banana—the United Brands Company. This job lasted one year. He next worked for the First National Bank of Boston. While studying at Chicago University, Sauter worked for a small real estate company, both in Chicago and Denver. While employed with the real estate firm, Sauter put together a venture capital deal and formed a gold mine.

Career
Sauter began his career in investment management as a trust investment officer with First Bancorp of Ohio (formerly The First National Bank of Ohio) and joined Vanguard in 1987. He was hired two weeks before the October 1987 market crash. At Vanguard he was given the reins to a nascent Quantitative Equity group and was the head investment manager of the firm's equity index funds. At the time, Vanguard's lone equity index fund and lone bond index fund held 1.4 billion dollars, representing just 3% of Vanguard's asset base.

Under Sauter's direction, Vanguard expanded its line-up of equity index funds. In addition, he helped develop new trading programs and strategies that minimized trading costs and enhanced benchmark tracking precision.

Sauter also oversaw development of Vanguard's active Quantitative Equity Group, which now manages 15 Vanguard active funds.

From 2003 through 2012, Sauter served as Vanguard’s chief investment officer. In that role, he was responsible for the oversight of approximately $1.7 trillion managed globally by Vanguard Fixed Income and Equity Investment Groups.

In 2003 Sauter helped create Vanguard's foray into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) when he developed a structure under which ETFs are offered as a separate share class of existing Vanguard index funds. Vanguard patented this structure in 2005.

Sauter announced his retirement, effective December 31, 2012, on June 22, 2012.

Professional advisory and committee roles
During his career, Sauter served on the advisory board of the Journal of Investment Management Conference Series, the Journal of Indexes Editorial Board, the Investor Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and the Council on the Graduate School of Business of The University of Chicago.

He served as a member of the equity markets committee of the Investment Company Institute, the Institutional Traders Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, and the Nasdaq Quality of Markets Committee. He also has served on the trading committee of the Securities Industry Association, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), and the AIMR Best Execution Task Force.

Bogleheads conference presentations
Mr. Sauter has presented at the Bogleheads® Conferences since 2014.
 * The Evolution of Indexing, October 24, 2014.
 * Expected equity returns ("Smart beta" is not part of this presentation.), October 17, 2015
 * What really is smart &beta;, September 30, 2016
 * Audio: Smart Beta (audio), produced by digarei.