Pamela Frederick's work at the Battery Park City Authority has enabled her to see firsthand how the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's actions impact issuers, and that experience, she said, will inform her contributions to board discussions as the MSRB's vice chair.
Frederick, the authority's chief financial officer and treasurer, was elected by the board during its quarterly meeting in July to serve as MSRB vice chair for fiscal year 2027, while Alexander Chilton, head of municipal securities at Morgan Stanley, was elected FY2027
"My chief goal is to work closely with the chair and the board to build on the momentum we have and continue moving our key priorities forward," Frederick said. "The municipal securities market is evolving, and I think it is important that MSRB continues evolving with it whether that is through our regulatory work, our investments in technology and data, or how we engage with the market."
The MSRB is "fortunate to have a very engaged stakeholder community, and I look forward to continuing to strengthen those relationships," she said.
"This market works because of the participation of all market participants and maintaining that dialogue will be important as we look for ways to support a strong and vibrant municipal securities market in the year, and years, ahead," Frederick said.
While the MSRB doesn't regulate issuers, "the rules, data and market infrastructure MSRB oversees have a meaningful impact on how the market functions for everyone who participates in it," she said.
"My work at Battery Park City Authority gives me firsthand experience with the effects of rulemaking, the decision-making process issuers make when accessing the capital markets, and the importance of having a market they can approach with confidence," Frederick said. "That experience will inform how I contribute to the board's discussions as vice chair."
As an issuer serving on the board, among the most important things she can do is to make sure the MSRB understands "how changes in the market are experienced in practice," the vice chair said when asked if there were any particular headwinds facing issuers – such as perhaps concerns surrounding what they will need to do to comply with the Financial Data Transparency Act – that she would like to help highlight during her time as vice chair.
"There is tremendous variety within the issuer community, and a challenge that may be relatively manageable for a large, frequent issuer can look very different for a smaller issuer with fewer resources," Frederick said. "FDTA is one development we are continuing to watch closely, particularly as the [Securities and Exchange Commission] develops and adopts data standards for the municipal securities market in the coming years and market participants evaluate what the potential impact of those standards will mean for the issuer community, especially small issuers."
In addition, "cybersecurity, tokenization and evolving market structure, along with liquidity remain top of mind," she said.
"However, for me, it is less about identifying one particular headwind and more about ensuring that the practical impact on issuers remains central to the conversation as the market continues to evolve and the MSRB advances its mandate to protect issuers in this market," Frederick said.
Frederick joined the Battery Park City Authority, a New York State public benefit corporation, in 2017. Established in 1968, the authority was tasked with "developing and maintaining a well-balanced community on the Lower West Side of Manhattan, in place of deteriorating piers that once stood in the Hudson River," according to the website for BPCA.
Asked what drew her to her role at BPCA, Frederick said contributing to infrastructure development was important to her.
"Given my previous experience as a project finance banker, combined with the strength of my financial experience and work in the capital markets, I felt this was an interesting next step and one in which I could make a positive impact," she said.
Frederick came to BPCA from Citigroup, which she joined in 2005. Frederick's more than three decades of experience in the financial world also included time spent at GE Capital and Chase Manhattan Bank. She holds a bachelor's degree in economics and an MBA in finance from the University of Michigan.
The municipal securities market "is extremely important to building infrastructure across America, and I love that," she said.
"I look forward to continuing conversations with MSRB's stakeholders, and as an issuer myself, having more frequent opportunities to directly engage with [the Government Finance Officers Association] and the issuer community to hear their perspectives on issues that are top of mind as they serve their communities," Frederick said.
