TIAA

We all know good ol’ Andrew Carnegie. Robber-baron-turned-good-ish-guy. He was really into culture and education...so much so that he decided to have his Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching create TIAA: The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association.

TIAA was a nonprofit (yep, was) that helped those in education, research, medicine, and culture get help with financial services. In 2010, TIAA stopped saying “no” to profits and started saying “yes, please.” Today, it offers retirement vehicles, investment accounts and advice, college savings plans, and even mortgages and estate-planning services.

If you think TIAA is a little helping-teachers org, well...it’s not. It has millions of active accounts at over 15,000 institutions with over $1 trillion in managed assets. Plus, it’s good at what it does. Thomson Reuters has rated it #1 for Best Overall Large Fund company many times in recent years.