WASHINGTON – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board announced on Thursday that it has selected five individuals who will become part of its 21-member board on Oct. 1.
The five – two representing the public and three from regulated entities – were chosen from 80 applicants and will serve four-year terms.
“This year’s class is simply outstanding,” said Lucy Hooper, MSRB chair until Sept. 30. “Their diversity of backgrounds and specialties will inform and enhance the MSRB’s investor protection and transparency initiatives.”
The board announced last month that its new chair will be Gary Hall, senior managing director and national head of investment banking and equity partner at Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co. Its new vice chair will be Edward Sisk, managing director and head of public finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The board has 11 independent public members and 10 members from firms regulated by the MSRB, including broker-dealers, banks and municipal advisors.
One two new member representing the public will be Caroline Cruise, a portfolio manager at Loews Corp. where she invests for the municipal portfolio of CNA Financial, a property and casualty insurance company majority-owned by Loews.
Before joining Loews in 2007, Cruise was a vice president in the municipal credit group at Merrill Lynch where she published sell-side research. Earlier in her career, she was an assistant vice president in the public finance department at Moody’s Investors Service where she assigned ratings and wrote credit opinions on an array of municipal issuers. She has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brown University and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.
Another public member will be Joseph Darcy, who is retired but formerly was an executive vice president and sector head for municipal fixed income at the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, where he oversaw and managed a $15 billion taxable and tax exempt municipal bond portfolio.
Darcy previously served on the MSRB’s Investor Advisory Committee in 2016. Before joining Hartford, Darcy was senior vice president and portfolio manager of tax-exempt fixed income at The Dreyfus Corp., a BNY Mellon Asset Management subsidiary where, in addition to his primary portfolio duties, he oversaw the research and trading staff that supported over $24 billion in short and long-term assets.
Prior to that, Darcy was vice president and portfolio manager in tax-exempt management at Merrill Lynch Asset Management. He began his career as an institutional sales and marketing specialist in municipal fixed income at Prudential Securities Inc. Darcy has a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
One of the new regulated members will be Patrick Brett, managing director of municipal debt capital markets at Citi where he leads the municipal debt capital markets business, working with U.S. municipal securities issuers and investors to raise capital for infrastructure projects and other key financing priorities. He is a member of Citi’s municipal executive management committee, where he helps oversee the firm’s 467-person municipal business.
Brett joined Citi-Salomon Smith Barney in 2000 as a municipal summer analyst and has held multiple positions in the company. He spearheaded Citi’s efforts to develop the Build America Bond market. He also led the international expansion of the program with the first global investor roadshows and established Citi’s U.S. municipal structured products sales group.
Brett is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s of science in economics from the Wharton School; a bachelor’s of arts in anthropology; and a master’s of science in South American archaeology.
Another new regulated board member will be Francis “Frank” Fairman, managing director and head of public finance services at Piper Jaffray & Co. where he oversees employees in 38 offices. He has led the public finance business at Piper Jaffray since 1991 and also manages the company’s derivative and lending subsidiaries. He joined Piper Jaffray in 1983, rising to managing director of public finance before leading the division and serving as a member of the firm’s leadership team.
Fairman served on the MSRB’s Professional Qualification Advisory Committee from 1996 to 2004. He began his career as a consultant at Arthur Anderson & Co., where he worked on projects designing and installing accounting management information systems for clients.
Fairman has a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from Yale University and a master’s degree in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Daniel Kiley, managing director and head of municipal fixed income trading at Wells Fargo Advisors, will be the other regulated member. At Wells Fargo Advisors he oversees municipal securities trading on behalf of the firm’s retail clients. The firm provides investment advice and guidance to clients through financial advisors in retail branches across the U.S. and administers $1.6 trillion in client assets.
Kiley has worked for Wells Fargo Advisors since 1995 and has held a number of positions in the company. Prior to his current role, he was a municipal underwriter and a manager of retail fixed income trading. He currently serves on the firm’s best execution and trading oversight committee. Kiley has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Richmond.
Leaving the board with be the current chair Hooper, an executive vice president at Davenport & Company, a regional broker-dealer in Richmond and vice chair Arthur Miller, managing director of the public sector and infrastructure group at Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Also leaving will be Richard Froehlich, chief operating officer and general counsel for the New York City Housing Development Corp., Dale Turnipseed, an executive director at J.P. Morgan, and Rita Sallis, a senior advisor at Blueprint Capital Advisors.
