Margaret "Peg" Henry is among the most important contributors to contemporary municipal finance law, navigating seismic changes in the landscape as a lawyer in private practice, an educator, a regulator, and in-house broker-dealer counsel.
Henry's more than 40 years as an influential attorney, for which she is being recognized as a member of The Bond Buyer's Muni Hall of Fame, span massive changes in federal tax law and in municipal regulations. Those dramatic events include the 1986 tax reform enacted by the Ronald Reagan administration, the Dodd-Frank Act enacted during the presidency of Barack Obama, and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act advanced under Donald Trump.
Henry has expertly navigated those changes to the benefit of her clients and the entire municipal market, where she is held in high esteem and where her thoughts about developments in municipal regulation find a ready ear among not just broker-dealers but also municipal advisors and issuers.
"I'm grateful to the many members of the municipal marketplace I've been able to work with during my career and for the remarkable opportunities I've been given to contribute," Henry told The Bond Buyer.
After graduating from Georgetown University in 1974, Henry went on to earn a law degree in 1977 and a Master of Laws in taxation in 1981 from George Washington University. During that time, Henry held visiting assistant professorships at the University of New Mexico and Catholic University.
From there Henry began a public finance career that would see her move back and forth between private practice and government work. As a partner at Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon in New York in the mid-1980s, she provided municipal bond tax advice to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Dormitory Authority of the State of New York.
From there Henry transitioned back to Washington D.C., where she worked as a tax attorney in the Treasury Department and as tax counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee.
She spent most of the 1990s working for firms and clients in New York, including in multiple capacities for the city, before landing at the Securities and Exchange Commission as an attorney fellow in 2001-2002. There she applied her already extensive experience in the market, evaluating the muni disclosure regime with an eye toward possible changes and, in some cases, assisting with municipal market enforcement actions. After rejoining the private sector for a few years, including as a senior in-house counsel at UBS, Henry joined the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board staff as general counsel of market regulation.
The time from 2008-2012 was critical in the MSRB's history, as it included the aftermath of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that expanded the MSRB's mission and mandated that it regulate not just dealers but also municipal advisors. Henry was the principal author of several important rule proposals and guidance that help govern muni market professionals today, including parts of the muni advisor regime as well as the potential applicability of MSRB rules to bank loans and direct purchases.
Lynnette Kelly, who was the MSRB's executive director during Henry's time there, remembered the key role Henry played.
"Peg is one of the most talented professionals in our business," Kelly said. "Her wealth of experiences — from major law firms to Capitol Hill to regulatory organizations to broker dealer firms — allows her to understand all perspectives when approaching an issue. Peg was our 'go-to' person during the implementation of Dodd-Frank, which necessitated reviewing current MSRB rules and creating new rules for municipal advisors. She is intelligent, thoughtful and perceptive in her work and is a delightful colleague."
After leaving the MSRB, Henry joined the financial services firm Jefferies as a senior vice president and associate general counsel, before taking her current post as head of legal for the municipal securities group at Stifel, where she is responsible for all legal matters concerning municipal securities, including public finance, sales, trading, and underwriting.
Aside from her formal employment, Henry has also made a lasting contribution to the market through her writing and her roles on various committees.
She was a contributor to Robert Fippinger's "The Securities Law of Public Finance," considered a must-read for bond lawyers. She has also been a member of committees for both the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and from 2012-2018 was an advisor to the Government Finance Officers Association's debt committee.
