WASHINGTON - The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has hired Leon J. Bijou as managing director and associate general counsel to work primarily with its municipal securities division on legal, regulatory, and market practice initiatives, SIFMA announced yesterday.
Bijou will report to managing director and associate general counsel Leslie Norwood, who had been single-handedly managing SIFMA's muni division for months.
Bijou joins SIFMA from Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he had worked since 2004 and was vice president and associate general counsel, as well as general counsel for the municipal bond department. Before joining Goldman, Bijou had his own legal practice for about six years. From 1989 to 1998, he worked as bond counsel, underwriters' counsel, trustees' counsel, and special product counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
"We are extremely pleased that Leon is joining SIFMA," said Randy Snook, senior managing director and executive vice president. "Given Leon's years of legal experience working on municipal bond issues and various economic development projects, I am confident that SIFMA's members will benefit greatly from this addition to our fixed-income staff."
"Leon's background will be an asset to SIFMA as we enter the new year with a focus on issues in the municipal bond market such as liquidity, transparency, taxes, and financing of state and local infrastructure," said Norwood.
Bijou earned a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and was executive articles editor for the Brooklyn Journal of International Law.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is soliciting nominees to succeed five members whose terms expire at the end of September. The 15-member board must elect two representatives from securities firms, two bank-dealer representatives, and one investor representative.
The five will replace Maud Smith Daudon, president of Seattle-Northwest Securities Corp. in Seattle; Michael F. Imhoff, managing director of Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Denver; James A. Posthauer, director of muni trading and underwriting at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in Atlanta; MSRB chairman Ronald Stack, managing director and head of public finance at Barclays Capital in New York; and Robert M. Zubak, senior portfolio manager at Allstate Investments LLC, in Northbrook, Ill.
Nominations should be sent by March 1 and may be submitted via e-mail to smajroh@msrb.org or through the mail to Peter Clarke, chair of the nominating committee, at the board's Alexandria, Va, headquarters.
