Announcing the Winners of Morningstar’s 2025 Awards for Investing Excellence

Today, Morningstar is naming the winners of its 2025 Awards for Investing Excellence. We’re handing out four awards:

• Exemplary Stewardship
• Outstanding Equity Portfolio Manager
• Outstanding Fixed Income Portfolio Manager
• Outstanding Allocation Portfolio Manager

As a reminder, nominees for the Exemplary Stewardship award needed to have analyst-assigned Above Average or High Parent Pillar ratings and a history of keeping investors’ interests front and center. Nominees for the Outstanding Portfolio Manager awards needed to earn analyst-assigned People Pillar ratings of Above Average or High, as well as Morningstar Medalist Ratings of Gold or Silver on at least one fund share class or investment vehicle in their charge. Long, impressive track records and proven investment skill were also important. (Look back at the nominees here: Exemplary Stewardship, Outstanding Equity Portfolio Manager, Outstanding Fixed-Income Portfolio Manager, Outstanding Allocation Portfolio Manager.)

This year’s winners have set high bars in their respective fields.

Exemplary Stewardship: Dimensional

Dimensional, founded in 1981, has stayed true to its academic roots. Its systematically constructed portfolios favor factors that its research finds attractive, including smaller-capitalization stocks and a value orientation. A key element of its stewardship is its work to educate advisors and investors and help them look to the long term. It has also shown itself willing to adapt. As clients began to pull out of its mutual funds in the late 2010s, Dimensional took a hard look at its lineup and instituted important changes. It cut fees multiple times, introduced tax-efficient exchange-traded funds (which now hold almost a third of the firm’s assets under management), and lowered the minimum investment required for its separate account platform. Co-CEOs Gerard O’Reilly and David Butler have led this evolution, which has helped maintain Dimensional’s Parent Pillar rating of High.

Outstanding Equity Portfolio Manager: Will Danoff, Fidelity

Will Danoff is an old-school stock-picker who’s still among the best in his class. Over nearly 35 years, he’s shepherded the $167 billion Fidelity Contrafund FCNTX from a tiny mutual fund to one of the industry’s largest actively managed offerings. He has capably invested across hundreds of companies, big and small, and has shown boldness at the right times. Such an approach has helped Danoff maintain his edge despite running such a large fund; it’s also why he recently had parked more than a third of Contrafund’s assets in just three successful long-term holdings: Meta Platforms META, Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A, and Nvidia NVDA. Almost all of Contrafund’s success owes to Danoff, who ran the fund alone until earlier this year. Danoff is arguably one of the last—and best—star equity-fund managers.

Outstanding Fixed Income Portfolio Manager: Bryan Krug, Artisan Partners

Bryan Krug has proved himself twice in his distinguished career. He honed an aggressive but effective style for high-yield bond investing at Waddell & Reed, taking what was then known as Ivy High Income (now Macquarie High Income) to phenomenal heights—both in terms of performance and assets. Krug left for Artisan in 2013 and, beginning in March 2014, has had another successful run—this time on Artisan High Income APHFX. He’s surrounded himself with a talented team, and together they’ve tactfully selected corporate bonds and bank loans to build a concentrated, potent portfolio. Splicing together his record over his Waddell & Reed and Artisan tenures, Krug stands out as a top high-yield bond investor.

Outstanding Allocation Portfolio Manager: David Giroux, T. Rowe Price

David Giroux’s awe-inspiring, 19-year run on T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation PRWCX has earned numerous accolades. This year’s honor will go alongside two Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year trophies (2012 and 2017). The fact that Giroux is a regular award nominee attests to his continued excellent leadership. Deft security selection, nimble moves across asset classes and sectors, and a bold contrarianism have put T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation in rarefied air. Only once has the fund finished in the moderate-allocation Morningstar Category’s bottom half in a full calendar year under Giroux (2007); in contrast, it has ended in the top 10% of peers an eye-watering 10 times. Even with its mix of stocks and bonds, T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation has largely kept up with the all-stock S&P 500 over Giroux’s tenure, albeit with much lower volatility.