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Contact: Jennifer A. Galloway
       202-838-1500
         jgalloway@msrb.org

MSRB ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD MEMBERS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2019

Washington, DC – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) today announced five new members of its Board of Directors to serve on the governing board of the municipal securities regulator. The 21-member MSRB Board consists of four “classes” with staggered terms, and annually elects a class in accordance with MSRB rules.

MSRB Board Chair Lucy Hooper said the incoming Board members bring exceptional knowledge and experience. “This year’s class is simply outstanding,” Hooper said. “Their diversity of backgrounds and specialties will inform and enhance the MSRB’s investor protection and market transparency initiatives.”

The MSRB also annually elects officers and recently announced that Gary Hall, Senior Managing Director, National Head of Investment Banking and equity partner at Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., LLC, will chair the Board beginning October 1, 2018. Edward J. Sisk, Managing Director, Head of Public Finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, will serve as Vice Chair.

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. New public members joining the MSRB Board beginning October 1 are: Caroline Cruise, Portfolio Manager, Loews Corporation and Joseph Darcy, retired. Joining the Board as regulated members are: Patrick Brett, Managing Director of Municipal Debt Capital Markets, Citi; Francis “Frank” Fairman, Managing Director and Head of Public Finance Services, Piper Jaffray & Co.; and Daniel Kiley, Managing Director and Head of Municipal Fixed Income Trading at Wells Fargo Advisors.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires all MSRB Board members be knowledgeable about the municipal securities market. New members were selected from more than 80 applicants this year. 

In addition to Hall and Sisk, continuing Board members are Renee Boicourt, Robert Clarke Brown, Julia Harper Cooper, Ron Dieckman, Richard Ellis, William M. Fitzgerald, Sr., Jerry W. Ford, Manju S. Ganeriwala, Lakshmi Kommi, Kemp J. Lewis, Seema Mohanty, Chris Ryon, Donna Simonetti and Beth Wolchock.

New MSRB Board Members, Fiscal Year 2019

Patrick Brett is Managing Director at Citi where he leads the Municipal Debt Capital Markets business, working with U.S. municipal securities issuers and investors to raise capital for infrastructure projects and other key financing priorities. He is a member of Citi’s Municipal Executive Management Committee, where he helps oversee the firm’s 467-person municipal business. Brett joined Citi-Salomon Smith Barney in 2000 as a municipal summer analyst and has held multiple positions in the company. Prior to his current role, he was managing director, head of global municipal marketing for nine years. In that role, he established municipal business for the company in London and Hong Kong. He spearheaded Citi’s efforts to develop the Build America Bond market. He also led the international expansion of the program with the first global investor roadshows and established Citi’s U.S. municipal structured products sales group. Brett is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an advisory board member at the University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Urban Research. Brett is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s of science in economics from the Wharton School; a bachelor’s of arts in anthropology; and a master’s of science in South American archaeology.

Caroline Cruise is a Portfolio Manager at Loews Corporation where she invests for the municipal portfolio of CNA Financial, a property and casualty insurance company majority-owned by Loews Corporation. Prior to joining Loews in 2007, Cruise was a vice president in the municipal credit group at Merrill Lynch where she published sell-side research. Earlier in her career, she was an assistant vice president in the public finance department at Moody’s Investors Service where she assigned ratings and wrote credit opinions on an array of municipal issuers. Cruise is a member and past president of the Municipal Forum of New York and is a member of the Municipal Analyst Group of New York and the National Federation of Municipal Analysts. She is a recipient of the Austen Koenen Career Achievement Award. Cruise has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brown University and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Joseph Darcy is retired and a former executive vice president and sector head for municipal fixed income at the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, where he oversaw and managed a $15 billion taxable and tax exempt municipal bond portfolio. In 2016, he served on the MSRB’s Investor Advisory Committee. Previously, Mr. Darcy was senior vice president and portfolio manager of tax-exempt fixed income at The Dreyfus Corporation, a BNY Mellon Asset Management subsidiary, where in addition to his primary portfolio duties, he oversaw the research and trading staff that supported over $24 billion in short and long-term assets. Earlier Darcy was vice president and portfolio manager in tax-exempt management at Merrill Lynch Asset Management. He began his career as an institutional sales and marketing specialist in municipal fixed income at Prudential Securities Inc. Mr. Darcy has a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Francis (“Frank”) Fairman is Managing Director and Head of Public Finance Services at Piper Jaffray & Co. where he oversees employees across 38 offices. He has led the public finance business at Piper Jaffray since 1991 and also manages the company’s derivative and lending subsidiaries. Fairman joined Piper Jaffray in 1983, rising to managing director of public finance before leading the division. Fairman serves as a member of Piper Jaffray’s leadership team. Fairman began his career as a consultant at Arthur Anderson & Co., where he worked on projects designing and installing accounting management information systems for clients. Throughout his career, he has served on many industry committees and practice groups, and on boards of community organizations. From 1996 to 2004 Fairman served on the MSRB’s Professional Qualification Advisory Committee and is a former board member of the Bond Market Association, the predecessor organization to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. He currently serves as vice chair of the board and head of the audit and finance Committee for Landmark College, and is a founding board member of Beyond Walls, a program in the Twin Cities that partners with inner-city schools and serves disadvantaged youth. Mr. Fairman has a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from Yale University, and a master’s degree in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel Kiley is Managing Director and Head of Municipal Fixed Income Trading at Wells Fargo Advisors, where he oversees municipal securities trading on behalf of the firm’s retail clients. Wells Fargo Advisors provides investment advice and guidance to clients through financial advisors in retail branches across the U.S. and administers $1.6 trillion in client assets. Kiley has worked for Wells Fargo Advisors since 1995 and has held a number of positions in the company. Prior to his current role, he was a municipal underwriter and a manager of retail fixed income trading. He currently serves on the firm’s best execution and trading oversight committee. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Richmond.


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. 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. 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. MSRB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.