Oklahoma Treasurer's Christian Investment Pick Raises Ethical Red Flags

When Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ fired the investment consultant managing $2 billion in tobacco settlement funds, he didn’t just make a business decision—he appears to have handed a lucrative contract to a firm deeply connected to his own political circle and religious worldview.

The ousted consultant, NEPC, had delivered record returns managing the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust’s portfolio. But that didn’t matter. Russ, who chairs TSET’s Board of Investors, orchestrated a bid process that ultimately replaced NEPC with Innovest Portfolio Solutions, a Christian investment firm with suspicious ties to Russ’s inner circle.

Here’s where it gets murky: Innovest is a client of Jerry Bowyer, Russ’s corporate engagement advisor. During the bidding period, Bowyer—an Episcopal deacon—was everywhere Innovest needed him to be. He spoke at Innovest’s inaugural Christian Institutional Investors Conference in April 2025. He appeared on panels with Innovest’s leadership. He promoted the firm on his podcast. The same Bowyer who, just months earlier, had been calling out investment consultants like NEPC for“loving the ESG space”at a major anti-ESG strategy conference.

The timing alone raises eyebrows. In January 2025, Derek Kreifels, former CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation, launched his own consultancy with Bowyer. One month later, Russ formally hired Bowyer as an advisor. Two weeks after that controversial SFOF conference where Kreifels urged treasurers to pressure board consultants to stop hiring ESG-friendly firms, TSET announced its request for proposals.

What’s troubling isn’t just the appearance of favoritism—it’s how openly the bid process seems to have violated procurement norms designed to prevent exactly this kind of back-channel influence. During the consideration period, Innovest sponsored SFOF panels attended by both Russ and its own executives. Russ’s advisor Bowyer was featured prominently alongside Innovest’s leadership. There’s no evidence Bowyer or other Russ allies gave NEPC the same access or promotional opportunities.

When the June board meeting finally came around, the presentation dynamics told the story. NEPC came to talk about performance and returns. Innovest came to align itself with what Russ called“Oklahoma values.”Board member John Waldo even questioned whether Innovest’s last-minute $60,000 fee cut during its pitch indicated improper communication with the vendor. Russ insisted that wouldn’t be“ethical,”even as his own advisor had been embedded in Innovest’s orbit for months.

The full picture reveals something more troubling than a simple preference for faith-aligned investing. This looks like a deliberate strategy to steer public money toward vendors who share the political and religious views of the decision-makers—wrapped in the language of fiduciary duty and shareholder protection. Leonard Leo’s anti-ESG network, which funds the ideological infrastructure behind this effort, has been explicit about its goal: to weaponize state investment power as a political tool. Russ and his allies appear to have turned that blueprint into practice, and Oklahoma taxpayers footed the bill.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court already ruled in April 2026 that Russ’s BlackRock divestment would cost the state pension funds millions—a stark reminder that ideology and sound investing don’t always align. This contract award suggests he hasn’t learned that lesson.