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Harvard Management Company's director for private equity and venture capital, Peter Dolan, has resigned from his post on April 10.

The resignation of Dolan, who is considered to be the dean of private equity chiefs, came at a time when the university plans to shift to a more aggressive approach to its $4 billion private equity portfolio.

In its annual report to trustees, the Harvard Management Company said that in the 2012 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, Harvard's private equity underperformed, with the asset class lagging the university's internal benchmark by 205 basis points. Private equity had a 1.99 percent return as against its 4.04 percent benchmark.

Harvard's private equity, which included Harvard's venture investments, was the only one of its five asset classes to underperform based on its internal benchmark. This resulted in the endowment's overall 0.05 percent loss for the year which led Harvard to deliver negative returns.

Harvard reported that it had become more bullish on its private equity, which represented 13 percent of its portfolio as of June 2012, with the policy target set to rise to 16 percent.

Dolan worked for the Harvard Management Company for 18 years before his resignation.