Harvard’s investment team has a new member. Harvard Management Company, the internal organization that handles the nation’s largest college endowment, has hired Barclays official Rene Canezin as managing director of its portfolio-management group, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Canezin comes to Harvard from Barclays Capital, where he was the head of U.S. credit and global high yield trading. He is expected to bring knowledge of investments in debt markets to his new post. Canezin joins Harvard Management Company as the university continues to recover from the record 27 percent tumble its endowment took during the financial crisis of 2008–’09.

Harvard’s endowment posted a positive 11 percent return in the 2010 fiscal year and remains the largest in higher education, valued at $27.6 billion. Yale’s endowment, by comparison, grew just 8.9 percent in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010.