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Contact: Aleis Stokes, Chief External Relations Officer
               202-838-1500
               astokes@msrb.org

 

MSRB ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD MEMBERS FOR FY 2025 

 

Washington, DC –The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) announced today that it has elected three new Board members for Fiscal Year 2025 who will serve four-year terms, which begin on October 1, 2024.

The announcement follows news from MSRB’s fourth quarterly Board meeting of FY 2024 where Warren “Bo” Daniels was elected to serve as Board Chair and Jennie Bennett was elected to serve as Vice Chair. Their terms begin on October 1, 2024.

“We are delighted to welcome our new Board members, who will bring fresh perspective to our important work,” Chair-elect Daniels said. “Their diverse experience in the field of public finance will be invaluable to MSRB as we work to advance our Congressional mandate to protect investors, issuers and the public interest by promoting a fair and efficient municipal securities market.”

The Board includes eight public members and seven regulated members. New public members joining the MSRB Board in FY 2025 are Ahmed A. Abonamah, former Chief Financial Officer & Director, Department of Finance, City of Cleveland, and Daniel L. Wiles, Assistant Treasurer and Tax Collector, County of Los Angeles. The new regulated member joining the Board is Heather E. Grzanka, Executive Director, Compliance Director, Fixed Income, Public Finance, JPMorgan Chase & Co., New York.

New Board members were selected from a pool of 48 applicants this year. “We also thank all of the highly qualified candidates who demonstrated their commitment to give back to the municipal market by applying to serve on the MSRB’s Board,” said Vice Chair-elect Bennett, who is also Chair of the Nominating Committee. Biographical information for Abonamah, Wiles and Grzanka can be found below.

Ahmed A. Abonamah will be taking on the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Rock Entertainment Group and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Most recently, he served as Chief Financial Officer & Director, Department of Finance, City of Cleveland, overseeing the general operations, fiscal affairs and debt program of the City of Cleveland. Prior to that role, Abonamah worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission, serving as director in the Office of Credit Ratings and in various positions in the Office of Municipal Securities, including Deputy Director of the office. Before joining the SEC, among other roles, Abonamah worked as a public finance attorney at a global law firm where he served as bond counsel, underwriter's counsel, and disclosure counsel on a wide variety of public finance transactions. Abonamah has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Dayton and a JD degree from Case Western Reserve School of Law.

Daniel L. Wiles is Assistant Treasurer and Tax Collector for the County of Los Angeles, where, as member of the Treasurer’s executive team, he oversees the public finance activities of the county, as well as the Treasury Pool deferred compensation investment teams. Prior to the County of Los Angeles, Wiles served in various public finance-related roles over a 17-year period with Fieldman, Rolapp & Associates, Inc. in Irvine, CA. His long career in public finance spans over 40 years and includes positions with a number of law firms and financial institutions in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. Wiles has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Minnesota and a JD degree from the University of Minnesota Law School.

Heather E. Grzanka is Executive Director, Compliance Director, Fixed Income, Public Finance for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, where she manages compliance for the Public Finance business including, banking, syndicate, sales and trading, debt capital markets, investor marketing, and infrastructure direct lending. Prior to JP Morgan Chase, Grzanka held fixed income compliance roles in New York with Jeffries LLC as Senior Vice President, UBS Investment Bank as Director, and First Albany Capital Inc., where she started her career. She has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Siena College and completed the Certified Regulatory Compliance Professional Program at the NASD Institute at the Wharton School. She holds the Series 7, 24, 53, 55, 79, and 63 registrations.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) protects and strengthens the municipal bond market, enabling access to capital, economic growth, and societal progress in tens of thousands of communities across the country. The MSRB fulfills this mission by creating trust in our market through informed regulation of dealers and municipal advisors that protects investors, issuers and the public interest; building technology systems that power our market and provide transparency for issuers, institutions, and the investing public; and serving as the steward of market data that empowers better decisions and fuels innovation for the future. The MSRB is a self-regulatory organization governed by a board of directors that has a majority of public members, in addition to representatives of regulated entities. The MSRB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.

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