About Us

Who is TIAA-CREF?
With more than $402 billion in combined assets under management as of 9/30/09, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) is a leading provider of retirement plans to those in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields.

It is our mission to serve individuals who dedicate themselves to the benefit and enlightenment of others – those who serve the greater good.

Serving Those Who Serve the Greater Good.
For more than 90 years, our focus has been to support nonprofit organizations as they help their employees achieve a successful financial future.

Today, TIAA-CREF provides an extensive range of investment and insurance products and services including annuities, mutual funds, IRA and Keogh plans; personal and institutional trust services; life insurance; advisor services; and 529 college savings plans.

What Makes TIAA-CREF Different?
In accordance with our nonprofit heritage, we at TIAA-CREF have long subscribed to a different set of guiding principles directly influenced by those we serve. Excellence, integrity and professionalism are inherent to our culture. Our employees maintain these high standards by being individually responsible and accountable for demonstrating responsiveness and sound judgment. The creative, results-oriented environment that stems from this culture leads to lasting relationships with our clients and their plan participants.



Headquartered in New York City, TIAA-CREF has major offices in Charlotte and Denver and dozens of local offices across the country.

TIAA-CREF's Value Proposition.
We are uniquely dedicated to providing the 15,000 organizations we serve with the most comprehensive way to help ensure secure retirements for their employees. We demonstrate this commitment by always acting in their best interest. Our retirement-focused investment strategy seeks to deliver consistent, long-term growth while protecting principal through prudent risk management. We provide:
•    Access to an effective range of products that provide the right mix of asset accumulation and guaranteed income,* helping to ensure that participants will live comfortably to and through retirement.
•    Expert consultative guidance in plan design and administration from our highly qualified and experienced retirement professionals.  
•    The opportunity for all participants, regardless of their portfolio size, to receive objective advice from non-commissioned,** certified and licensed advisors who do what is best for them based on their retirement goals.

Our products, services and strategy combine to create the best overall value in retirement planning in the industry.

If you share our values and vision and would like to be a part of our mission, we invite you to consider joining the exceptional group of people that make up the TIAA-CREF family.



TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC and Teachers Personal Investors Services, Inc., members FINRA, distribute securities products. Annuity contracts and certificates are issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) and College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), New York, NY. Advisory services are provided by Advice and Planning Services, a division of TIAA CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC, a registered investment advisor.





* Based on the claims-paying ability of the issuer.

** TIAA-CREF compensates its advisors through a salary-plus-incentive program based on client service excellence and financial results. Advisors will only recommend products that help achieve our clients’ goals.

Culture

At TIAA-CREF, we are committed to upholding the cultural values and practices that have always set our company apart; value, integrity, sound investment management, a high level of service and consultants whose compensation is not tied to commissioned sales*. Most important, we have dedicated people who are inspired by our mission to serve those who serve the greater good.
Our Mission

Our company charter states that our mission is "to aid and strengthen" the institutions we serve and to provide financial products that are "suited to the needs of such entities, their employees and their families, on terms as advantageous to the holders and beneficiaries of such contracts and policies as shall be practicable."

That mission obligates us to be the strongest, most successful and most effective operation we can be. It also compels us to connect more personally with our customers, so that we can understand their current needs and then meet them. That is why we are transforming ourselves to refocus on the noble mission our founder, Andrew Carnegie, gave us more than 85 years ago.
Our Roots

Andrew Carnegie was one of history's great philanthropists who believed in using his enormous wealth to advance the greater good. When he became a trustee at Cornell in 1890, Mr. Carnegie was appalled to learn how small professors' salaries were and thought they deserved a financially secure retirement. He donated $10 million to fund a system of free pensions that over time, evolved into the company known today as TIAA-CREF.

We are proud of our nonprofit roots and our special relationship with the higher education market. Today, we continue to serve those whose life work advances the greater good, which has expanded to include people who work in the medical, cultural and research fields, in addition to higher education.
Our Values

Staying true to our values, we are setting a new standard in the financial services industry by becoming a company that is completely aligned with its customers' best interests. We are offering high value products and services, objective advice and a wide choice of world-class products, both proprietary and nonproprietary, tailored to our clients' ultimate financial goals.

We have also made great strides in nurturing a corporate culture of ethics and compliance. Annually, we survey employees to help ensure that we have an accurate understanding of how well they think our culture suits our strategy. Our people have consistently affirmed that our key values: integrity, diversity, and upholding our good reputation — remain part of our current culture. These three values have consistently ranked in the "top ten" of values that describe our current culture, and that's exactly where they should be, since they underlie what is special and unique about our company. These are aspects of our identity that must never change.
*Our advisors receive no sales commissions as part of their total compensation. They are compensated through a salary plus incentive program that rewards client service excellence rather than product promotion.

Diversity

AA-CREF has a long-standing history of commitment to diversity. Over the past several years, we have amassed an impressive record of recruiting, developing and maintaining a diverse and talented workforce. During the past decade, our commitment to workplace diversity has been recognized consistently in studies published by Fortune, Working Mother and Hispanic magazine, among other publications.

Building on our success, our goal is to ensure that we continue to respect the creativity, talents and experiences that each employee contributes regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, veteran status, gender identity, medical condition or family circumstance. We actively recruit and hire members of underrepresented groups for opportunities in all areas, at all levels in the organization, to achieve our objective of a highly diversified talent pool.

Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunity Employment

TIAA is committed to providing equal opportunity in all employment practices, including recruitment, selection, training/development, promotion, transfer and compensation of all qualified applicants and employees without regard to race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, age, marital status, national origin, disability, citizenship status, veteran status, gender identity or any category protected by law ("protected categories").  Discrimination or harassment based on any of these protected categories will not be tolerated and is cause for disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.

We believe our employees have a right to work in an environment free of discrimination. To that end, managers and supervisors are responsible for upholding our equal employment opportunity and affirmative action policies, which are reflected in our recruiting, hiring, training and compensation practices.

Supplier Diversity Program

Our commitment to diversity extends to the communities we serve and the organizations with which we choose to do business. Our Supplier Diversity program was established in 1993 to encourage business relationships that seek out the best quality and highest service levels, while encouraging competition among diverse and diversity conscious suppliers. Through the program, TIAA-CREF offers equal access and opportunity to minority- and women-owned businesses and to majority vendors who meaningfully support our Supplier Diversity goals, enhancing our ability to:

* Identify and retain qualified minority- and women-owned businesses;
* Increase opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses to establish mutually advantageous business relationships with TIAA-CREF;
* Identify and include one or more minority- and women-owned suppliers in all bids or requests for proposals (RFPs); and
* Foster business opportunities between majority suppliers and minority- and women-owned businesses.

We are proud to have received recognition for our initiatives in workplace diversity from media and cultural organizations including:
•    Black Enterprise – For the third year in a row, TIAA-CREF ranked among the magazine’s 40 Best Companies for Diversity (June 2009).
•    Human Rights Campaign Foundation – TIAA-CREF earned a top rating of 100 percent in the foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, a report card on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality in corporate America (October 2009).

TIAA-CREF ranks #82 in Fortune magazine's list of the 500 largest U.S. companies and #296 in the magazine’s global 500 list (July 2009).

More about diversity

Careers

Explore opportunities to join our team and support our mission of serving those who serve the greater good.

Benefits
At TIAA, employee benefits are a key component of our total compensation and benefits package.

Career Development
Our comprehensive vision for learning and development includes integrated learning paths, performance management and personal responsibility.