After joining Vanguard in 1987, Sauter developed new trading programs and strategies that minimized trading costs and reduced tracking error. He also developed Vanguard’s active quantitative strategies for equities and led the firm’s entry to the ETF business. Sauter designed a unique structure under which Vanguard ETFs are actually separate share classes of its existing index funds.
In 2003, Sauter was named Vanguard’s first-ever CIO.
“I look back with a mixture of pride and humility on helping to popularize the indexing concept,” Sauter said in the press release. He is considering “a number of endeavors,” including teaching, after he steps down at year-end.
Vanguard manages more than $1.1 trillion in indexed assets.