The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board Tuesday announced its officers and Board of Directors members who will begin their terms on October 1, 2013. Daniel Heimowitz, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets, will serve as Chair of the MSRB. Joseph J. Geraci, Managing Director and Co-Head of Municipal Markets at Citi, will serve as Vice Chair. Officer terms are for one year.
The MSRB's new Board of Directors members represent the public as well as entities regulated by the MSRB. New public representatives are Robert P. Cochran, Co-Managing Director and Chairman of the Board at Build America Mutual Assurance Company; Lakshmi Kommi, Director of Debt Management for the City of San Diego, California; Christopher M. Ryon, Managing Director at Thornburg Investment Management; and Colleen Woodell, former Chief Credit Officer of Global Corporate and Government Ratings for Standard & Poor's.
Joining the Board as securities firm representatives are James D. McKinney, Senior Advisor at William Blair & Company, and Brian L. Wynne, Co-Head of Public Finance and Head of the Municipal Syndicate Desk at Morgan Stanley. Nathaniel Singer, Managing Director at Swap Financial Group, joins the Board as a municipal advisor representative.
Daniel Heimowitz, who has served on the Board since 2011, is Managing Director in RBC Capital Markets' U.S. Municipal Finance group. Prior to his position with RBC Capital Markets, Heimowitz was a managing director in Lehman Brother's public finance group. He joined Lehman Brothers after a 19-year career with Moody's Investors Services. He has bachelor's degrees in economics and geography from Clark University and a master's degree in city planning from Harvard University.
Joseph J. Geraci, who has served on the Board since 2011, is Managing Director at Citi and Co-head of Municipal Markets for the company's municipal securities division. Prior to his current position, Geraci was co-head of Citi's municipal financial products group. Geraci has been a leader in Citi's efforts to expand the reach of its municipal securities division into affordable housing, new products and other technologies to improve the efficiency of the municipal market. He serves on the advisory board of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and on the advisory board of the Institute for Affordable Housing at New York University's Furman School. Geraci graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in economics.
Robert P. Cochran is the Co-Managing Director and Chairman of the Board at Build America Mutual Assurance Company, which he co-founded. Prior to this position, Cochran was CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Financial Security Assurance. Cochran currently sits on the Board of Visitors for Duke University School of Law and is a member of the Duke Law LLM Law and Entrepreneurship Advisory Committee. He has a bachelor's degree from Centre College and a law degree from Duke University School of Law.
Lakshmi Kommi is the Director of Debt Management for the City of San Diego, California and has over 19 years of experience in municipal finance in an issuer capacity. Kommi has worked for the City of San Diego since 1994 and has held positions as a Supervising Economist and Deputy Director of San Diego's Financing Services Division. Kommi is a member of the City of San Diego's Disclosure Practices Working Group and serves on San Diego's Capital Improvements Program Review and Advisory Committee. Kommi also serves on the Board of Directors for the San Diego Chapter of Women in Public Finance. She has a bachelor's degree from Osmania University in India and master's degrees from Osmania University and the University of California, San Diego.
James D. McKinney is a Senior Advisor at William Blair & Company, for whom he has worked since 1974, and has 42 years of experience in the development and marketing of fixed-income securities. McKinney is a life trustee of St. Ignatius College Prep, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Spring Hill College and a past member of the Advisory and Development Board of the St. Vincent DePaul Center. McKinney has a bachelor's degree from Spring Hill College and a master's degree from Loyola University.
Christopher M. Ryon is Managing Director at Thornburg Investment Management. Prior to his role with Thornburg, Ryon was Head of Vanguard's Long Municipal Bond Group. He also held positions with the accounting firms Laventhol & Horwath and Ernst & Whinney. Ryon testified before the Senate Banking Committee regarding price transparency in the municipal bond market. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and has a bachelor's degree from Villanova University and a master's degree from Drexel University.
Nathaniel Singer is Managing Director at Swap Financial Group, where he is responsible for analyzing strategies, policies and pricing of municipal bonds and derivative-based products. Prior to his position at Swap Financial Group, Singer was Senior Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer for Bear Stearns & Co. Inc.'s Municipal Bond Department. Singer has been a guest lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and its Operations Research and Financial Engineering program, and is a former board member of Princeton University's Department of Engineering. He has also served as an advisor to the Government Accounting Standards Board in the design and implementation of GASB Statement No. 53 and No. 64, on Accounting and Financial Reporting for Derivative Instruments. Singer graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in engineering.
Colleen Woodell is the former Chief Credit Officer of Global Corporate and Government Ratings for Standard & Poor's. Prior to this role, she was Chief Quality Officer and Team Leader for U.S. Public Finance at Standard & Poor's. Woodell recently served as a consultant for the Citizens Budget Commission in New York City providing research support studying the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Woodell has also worked for First Albany Corporation and 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. Woodell has a bachelor's degree from Wells College.
