Chicago Financial Advisor Jumps to S&P

CHICAGO – Chicago-based financial advisor Melanie Shaker is returning to her rating agency roots, but on the commercial side.

Shaker, who early in career was a Fitch Ratings analyst, started this week as a relationship manager at S&P Global Ratings. She is based in the firm's Chicago office and works on the public finance relationship management team.

Shaker will work with relationship managers in Dallas, New York City, and San Francisco, and report to Kathleen Evers, who joined the firm earlier this year as manager of the team. Evers previously was with BMO Capital Markets and then Piper Jaffray, which acquired BMO's municipal group.

Shaker opened a Chicago office in 2014 for Indiana-based Sycamore Advisors LLC as the firm sought to bolster its share of Illinois work. Sycamore had begun to move into the Chicago market a few years earlier.

Prior to Sycamore, Shake served as chief financial officer at City Colleges of Chicago and deputy chief financial officer and treasurer at Chicago Public Schools. Prior to CPS, Shaker worked for seven years at Fitch Ratings. She advanced to become the lead Midwest analyst covering public finance.

Illinois has proven fertile ground for Sycamore. The firm ranked third among financial advisors in Illinois for the first six months of the year and 10th in the Midwest, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

"We remain very committed to our Chicago clients, they have all been formally notified and we are keeping our Jackson Boulevard office and are actively looking for a replacement," said the firm's president Diana Hamilton.

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