The BU Investment Office is adding a Questrom School of Business alum to the team responsible for growing the University’s $1.5 billion endowment.

Daniel T. Steele (Questrom’85) will have the title of director, investments, when he joins the office in early August, says Clarissa C. (Lila) Hunnewell, the University’s chief investment officer.

Steele has worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Investment Management Company (MITIMCo) since 1992. He is a managing director and a member of the MITIMCo global investment staff.

“We are a small, close-knit team that works well together,” says Hunnewell. “I wanted someone who could contribute across the portfolio while capitalizing on his specialized background. It’s a real bonus that Dan got his MBA at the Questrom School of Business and is excited to help his alma mater.”

Steele earned his MBA in an 18-month accelerated program available at the time at the Questrom School of Business.

“I’m going to get to do a lot of things at BU and not just look at one asset class,” says Steele, who works primarily in private equity at MIT. “It’s a small office setting, and I’m going to be pitching in and making a big difference.”

Annual distribution from the University’s $1.5 billion pooled endowment is used to support about 2 percent of the University’s operating budget of approximately $2 billion, including financial aid, faculty, and academic initiatives. Under Hunnewell, the investment office earned a 16.9 percent return on the endowment in the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2014.

Steele is filling a recent vacancy on the department’s eight-person staff. Director John DeSisto left earlier this year to become the first-ever chief investment officer for the Yawkey Foundations.

MITIMCo, where Steele worked after six years at the Westinghouse Credit Corporation, manages MIT’s endowment of about $13.5 billion, as well as another $3.5 billion in the employee pension fund. Steele holds an undergraduate degree from Babson College.