Edward Sisk, a managing director and head of public finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, will chair the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board as it enters a period of transition Oct. 1.
The MSRB announced Sisk as chair and Virginia State Treasurer Manju Ganeriwala as vice chair Tuesday afternoon, along with the news that MSRB President and CEO Lynnette Kelly would retire at the conclusion of the fiscal year Sept. 30.
Joining Sisk and Ganeriwala on the board will be 14 returning members and five new ones who are all women.
“Our incoming board members are just exceptional,” said outgoing MSRB Board Chair Gary Hall. “Their diverse perspectives and experience will breathe fresh air into our initiatives for fiscal year 2020 and beyond. The impressiveness of these incoming board members is a real testament to the trailblazing women in our market, including our very own Lynnette Kelly, who has served this organization with distinction for over a decade.”
The MSRB began
The three new members representing the public are bond lawyer Meredith Hathorn, retired former New York City Deputy Comptroller Carol Kostic, and retired former portfolio manager Thalia Meehan. The two filling spots for regulated entities are UBS Managing Director and Head of Underwriting Angelia Schmidt and Sonia Toledo, a municipal advisor and managing director at Frasca & Associates.
Hathorn is a managing partner at the Louisiana-based firm of Foley & Judell, where she began her career initially as a law clerk. She is the president of the Louisiana Chapter of Women in Public Finance and a member and prior board member and secretary of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and the American College of Bond Counsel.
In her New York City job Kostic had been responsible for managing a a debt portfolio of more than $110 billion. She has previously been chief financial officer for the New York City Housing Development Corp. and a vice president at Merrill Lynch & Co. In 2015, she received the Freda Johnson Public Sector Award from the Northeast Women in Public Finance, and in 2010, the Municipal Forum of New York’s Public Service Award.
Meehan led the tax-exempt team at Putnam Investments, where her career began. Previously, she worked as a financial analyst at the Colonial Group Inc. in Boston. She served on the MSRB’s Investor Advisory Group in 2016. She is a board member of Boston Women in Public Finance and an independent director for Safety Insurance Group and Cambridge Bancorp.
Schmidt leads UBS’ new-issue execution for Public Finance tax-exempt and taxable bond transactions. She was previously a managing director and senior underwriter in the public finance group at J.P. Morgan, and prior to that worked in J.P. Morgan's Global Structured Syndicate group. She is a co-founder of UBS’ Public Finance Women’s Network and is on the firm’s Executive Advisory Council for All Bar None. Ms. Schmidt was honored as a 2018 Trailblazing Woman in Public Finance by the Bond Buyer and a 2010 Rising Star by the Women’s Bond Club.
Before her current work at Frasca, Toledo worked as managing director in the Northeast Public Finance Region at Wells Fargo Securities. She has also been a managing director at Lehman Brothers and later at Merrill Lynch & Co. She is the vice chair of GrowNYC and member of the Women Entrepreneurs NYC Council.
The returning board members are Patrick Brett, Robert Brown, Julia Cooper, Caroline Cruise, Joseph Darcy, Ronald Dieckman, Frank Fairman, William Fitzgerald, Jerry Ford, Daniel Kiley, Kemp Lewis, Seema Mohanty, Donna Simonetti and Beth Wolchock.
