Standard & Poor's promoted Tina Morris to head of U.S. public finance on Tuesday, according to an internal memo The Bond Buyer obtained.
Morris, 42, now managing director and global head of ratings operations, will take over Dec. 1 and will succeed Steve Murphy, who retired July 31. She will report to Jim Wiemken, executive managing director and head of structured finance and U.S. public finance ratings.
"Tina Morris has a deep and varied knowledge of S&P's ratings," Wiemken said in a statement. "She has led work on the management of strategic systems, operational and editorial oversight, and regulatory processes. Tina will bring this knowledge and skillset to the broad and diverse U.S. public finance group."
The following managing directors will report to Morris: Horacio Aldrete, local governments; Diane Brosen, business development; Geoff Buswick, infrastructure; Robin Prunty, states, education and healthcare; and Valerie White, housing enterprise.
According to the memo from Neeraj Sahai, president of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, Tom Sheridan, in his U.S. public finance business operations capacity, will support Morris during her transition but afterward will perform a similar business operations role for U.S. structured finance, reporting to Wiemken.
Sahai said S&P expects to fill Morris' vacated position shortly.
Murphy worked for the agency for 33-1/2 years before moving to Lexington, Ky., over the summer.
S&P's U.S. public finance team has expanded from about 30 to 290 people since the early 1980s.
It rates more than 19,000 entities, including U.S. states, local governments, public and private higher education, not-for-profit health care, tax-exempt housing, municipal utilities, municipal structured, public power, airports, ports, toll roads and infrastructure.
Morris has been with the ratings operations team since 2009. Before that, she was a business process leader serving on the strategic operations team and focusing on projects for the Ratings practices.
Previously, she led operations and new client integration for the portfolio advisor fee-based brokerage product in Standard & Poor's portfolio services group.
Morris joined McGraw-Hill Cos., S&P's parent, in 2003 after having served for seven years as a U.S. Army officer. She has a bachelor's degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a master's in business administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Morris also holds a Six Sigma black belt.
