WASHINGTON – Market participants who want to serve as Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board members have 16 more days to apply for four-year terms starting Oct. 1.
The 21-member, majority-public board is responsible for making policy decisions, authorizing rulemaking, enhancing market transparency systems, and overseeing MSRB operations. Eleven of the board members are public and include investors and representatives from non-MSRB regulated entities. Ten of the members are from regulated entities and include broker-dealers, bank dealers, and municipal advisors.
The MSRB is specifically asking individuals with strong knowledge of muni sales and trading desk operations to apply by Feb. 17. Those with experience in underwriting or syndicate practices and individuals who are retail or institutional investors are also encouraged to apply.
The board needs to replace five members after their terms expire on Sept. 30, the end of the MSRB's fiscal year 2017. The spots include three public and two regulated positions, one of which must be a non-dealer municipal advisor.
The current members leaving will be: Steve Apfelbacher, president of Ehlers and Associates in Minnesota; Dall Forsythe, visiting scholar with the New York University Wagner School of Public Service; Gary Hall, senior managing director as well as national head of investment banking and equity partner with Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co. in Oakland; Rita Sallis, principal with The Yucaipa Companies in Los Angeles; and Colleen Woodell, former chief credit officer of global and corporate government ratings with Standard & Poor's and the MSRB's current chair.
Woodell said the board is “very interested in candidates that represent diverse experiences and market perspectives, and as always, the market’s gender and minority diversity.”
MSRB staff will review all applicants' materials. The MSRB's nominating and governance committee will examine the applications and select candidates for interviews during the third and fourth quarters of the MSRB's fiscal year. The committee will then recommend candidates to the full board for election.
The MSRB is currently in the middle of its transition, until fiscal year 2020, to move to four-year instead of three-year board member terms. The last step in the transition will be in effect for the board's fiscal year 2019, when three public and two regulated individuals from the class of members that would have ended after 2018 will serve an extra one-year term.
In fiscal year 2020, there will be no more extensions needed and five new members will join the board. After that, new classes of board members with four-year terms will be named annually in a repeating sequence of six members, then five members, then five members, then five members.
