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MSRB ANNOUNCES NEW OFFICERS AND BOARD MEMBERS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017
Washington, DC – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) today announced new officers and members of its Board of Directors who will begin their terms on October 1, 2016. The MSRB also provided details of its plan to transition Board membership to four years by extending the terms of certain current members.
For the MSRB’s 2017 fiscal year, Colleen Woodell, former Chief Credit Officer of Global Corporate and Government Ratings, Standard & Poor's, will serve as Chair of the Board. Arthur Miller, Managing Director, Goldman, Sachs & Co., will serve as Vice Chair. Officer terms are one year.
Joining the Board for the new fiscal year are J. Anthony Beard, Chief Financial Officer, City of Atlanta; Robert Clarke Brown, Treasurer, Case Western Reserve University; Julia H. Cooper, Director of Finance, City of San Jose; Jerry W. Ford, President, Ford & Associates, Inc.; Kemp J. Lewis, Senior Managing Director, Raymond James & Associates; and Edward J. Sisk, Managing Director, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Each new Board member will serve a four-year term ending September 30, 2020.
The Board, which has 11 independent public members and 10 members from firms regulated by the MSRB, including broker-dealers, banks and municipal advisors, establishes regulatory policies and oversees the operations of the MSRB. All Board members must be knowledgeable about the municipal securities market and were selected from more than 100 applicants.
“The new class of Board members includes highly experienced and knowledgeable public representatives and municipal securities professionals,” said MSRB Chair Nathaniel Singer. “They join an exceptional new leadership team that will oversee the MSRB’s pursuit of its mission to protect investors, municipal entities, obligated persons and the public interest.”
In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the MSRB, approved lengthening the term of service for the MSRB Board members to four years from three to provide greater continuity and institutional knowledge while preserving the benefits of a yearly incoming class. Under the new structure, which is effective in fiscal year 2017, four staggered classes—one class of six members and three classes of five members—will ensure consistent and manageable annual turnover. The transition plan allows the Board to shift expeditiously and efficiently to the new terms while minimizing disruption and balancing to the extent possible the number of public and regulated representatives receiving one-year extensions.
Current Board members Steve Apfelbacher, Dall Forsythe, Gary Hall, Rita Sallis and Colleen Woodell will serve until September 30, 2017. Board members Ron Dieckman, Richard Froehlich, Lucy Hooper, Arthur Miller and Dale Turnipseed will serve on the Board until September 30, 2018. Board members Renee Boicourt, Richard Ellis, Mark Kim, Chris Ryon and Patrick Sweeney will serve until September 30, 2019.
MSRB Officers and New Board Members, Fiscal Year 2017
Chair-Elect Woodell has been an MSRB Board member since 2013. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors, Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee, and is a member of the Steering Committee. Ms. Woodell is the former Chief Credit Officer of Global Corporate and Government Ratings for Standard & Poor’s. Prior to this role at Standard & Poor's, she was S&P's Chief Quality Officer and Team Leader for U.S. Public Finance. Ms. Woodell has also worked for First Albany Corporation, Fitch Investors Service and Moody’s Investors Services. She is a former member of the Analytic Policy Board at Standard & Poor’s and a past president and member of the Board of Governors of the Municipal Forum of New York. Ms. Woodell has a bachelor’s degree from Wells College.
Vice Chair-Elect Miller has been an MSRB Board member since 2014. He currently serves as Chair of the Finance Committee, and is a member of the Steering Committee. He is Managing Director of the Public Sector & Infrastructure Group in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. Mr. Miller joined Goldman Sachs in 1985, where he serves as Co-head of the Public Finance Strategies and Analytics Group. He has previously worked in the firm’s New Product Development Group, and the Fixed Income Research Group. He started his career as an Associate Attorney at Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon. Mr. Miller earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina, a law degree from Duke University School of Law, and a master’s of law from New York University.
J. Anthony Beard is the Chief Financial Officer of the City of Atlanta where he is responsible for the oversight and management of the city’s financial condition. He also advises the Mayor and city council on municipal finance, budgeting, treasury activities, accounting, financial policies and pension matters. Prior to his role at the City of Atlanta, Mr. Beard served as the Deputy Commissioner of Finance and Management for Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management, providing centralized financial and administrative support to the city’s multi-billion-dollar water sewer system, and coordination and oversight of departmental business systems. Prior to that, Mr. Beard was Treasurer for the Palm Beach County (FL) Clerk and Comptroller. Mr. Beard has a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University.
Robert Clarke Brown is Treasurer at Case Western Reserve University, where he manages the university's debt and swap portfolios, credit rating agency relationships, investor relations, and relationships with the financial industry. Prior to his role at Case Western Reserve, Mr. Brown was Capital Markets Advisor at the U.S. Department of Transportation where he assisted in the establishment the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, the first federal credit enhancement program for surface transportation. Previously Mr. Brown managed the public finance department for Key Capital Markets, the investment banking subsidiary of KeyCorp. Earlier in his investment banking career, he was a senior investment banker in the transportation finance group at Lehman Brothers in New York. Mr. Brown practiced law, including municipal bond law, with the firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Cleveland, and practiced and taught at Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Interest Representation in Washington DC. Mr. Brown’s public sector experience includes additional work in federal and state government. As Ohio’s Assistant Director of Transportation, he managed the state’s public transit, aviation and water and rail transportation programs. Earlier he served as an aide to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in the Office of Policy and International Affairs and as Senior Counsel to the Committee on Government Operations of the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Brown also served as an engineering naval officer on the staff of Admiral Hyman Rickover. For more than a decade, Mr. Brown served as a Presidential appointee on the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Earlier in his career he was counsel to two Congressional oversight committees. Mr. Brown currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Medical Center Company, a non-profit district energy company in Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Brown has a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a law degree from Harvard Law School.
Julia Harper Cooper is Director of Finance at the City of San Jose, where she is responsible for the oversight of the accounting, treasury, revenue management and purchasing/risk management divisions. Ms. Cooper has been working at the City of San Jose for 29 years, and responsible for the City’s municipal debt issuance and management since 1990. She has been actively involved in administering a debt portfolio in excess of $5 billion from over 100 different bond issuances. As Director of Finance, she is actively involved in the preparation of the city’s primary market disclosure documents and annual continuing disclosure reporting. Ms. Cooper was a member of the Government Finance Officers Association’s Executive Board from 2010 to 2013. She was recognized by the Silicon Valley Business Journal as Woman of Influence in the Spring of 2016. Ms. Cooper has a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University and a master’s degree from San Jose State University.
Jerry W. Ford is President of Ford & Associates, Inc., a municipal advisory firm that specializes in tax-exempt financing. For the past 32 years, Mr. Ford has worked as a financial advisor to a wide array of municipalities including, cities, counties, utility systems, special districts, public K-12 systems, charter schools, and universities. As President of Ford & Associates, Mr. Ford advises clients on credit, structure, and sale of new-money and refunding issues, direct placement of bank loans, use and structure of interest rate swaps, and termination of existing swaps. Prior to founding Ford & Associates, Inc., Mr. Ford worked as a public finance underwriter/banker and financial advisor for a major southeast regional bank. Before entering investment banking, Mr. Ford was a senior consultant with Booz, Allen, and Hamilton in Washington D.C., and worked in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He is a member of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts. Mr. Ford has a bachelor’s degree from California State University at Los Angeles and a master’s in public administration from the University of Southern California.
Kemp J. Lewis is Senior Managing Director at Raymond James & Associates, Inc., where he leads the Northeast public finance group and is on the department’s Executive Committee. Mr. Lewis previously worked in public finance at Morgan Keegan, which was acquired by Raymond James. Prior to Morgan Keegan, Mr. Lewis was a Managing Director in the Public Sector and Infrastructure Finance department at Goldman Sachs where he co-headed the derivatives marketing group. He also held public finance positions at Lehman Brothers, Dean Witter Reynolds and Salomon Brothers. He began his career as a management consultant at Arthur Young and Company. Mr. Lewis is a longstanding member of SIFMA's Municipal Financial Products Committee. Mr. Lewis has a bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston and a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Edward J. Sisk is Managing Director, Head of Public Finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he leads a team of investment bankers responsible for municipal underwriting in the United States. Prior to his current role, Mr. Sisk led municipal structured products, direct lending, money market trading and new product development at Merrill Lynch. Prior to those positions, he was an attorney at Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon working with municipal issuers and underwriters. Mr. Sisk has a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and a law degree from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.
