Justin Marlowe is a Research Professor at Harris and serves as Director of the Center for Municipal Finance. He has published six books including Public Debt Management: Strategy and Evidence (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press) and the first open textbook for public financial management, Financial Strategy for Public Managers (with Sharon Kioko, 2018). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Municipal Finance Journal, he serves on the Government Finance Officers Association’s Standing Committee on Governmental Debt Management, and he sits on the Board of Trustees of the Vantage Trust Company. He is an admitted expert witness in federal and state courts, in 2018 he was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration, and he has served on technical advisory bodies for the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, the National Academies of Science, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, and many other governments, non-profits and for-profit entities. His column in Government Finance Review is read by municipal finance practitioners across North America, and he is proud to co-host the CMF-sponsored podcast – “The Public Money Pod.”

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Christopher R. Berry is the William J. and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the College. His research interests include metropolitan governance and finance, with a focus on property taxation, intergovernmental relations, and social equity. Berry is the author of Imperfect Union: Representation and Taxation in Multilevel Governments, winner of the Best Book Award in Urban Politics from the American Political Science Association, Theory and Credibility (with Scott Ashworth and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita), and many other scholarly publications. His research has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Chicago Tribune, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and many other outlets.

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Leila Barbour is a capital markets professional with over 15 years of financial, strategic, and policy experience. Expert at analyzing regulatory developments, emerging practices, trends and risks that affect the equity, corporate bond, private equity and credit, municipal securities, carbon credit, and cryptocurrency markets and developing policy and best practice recommendations. She has extensive experience as a public finance investment banker and municipal advisor, assisting state and local governments as part of the financing process for municipal projects. Leila holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a graduate of the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce.

Omar Daghestani leads Stifel’s Chicago, New York and Boston public finance offices, and serves on the Executive committee for public finance. Omar has senior managed $28.8 billion in issues nationally over the course of his career, three of which were awarded Deal of the Year by The Bond Buyer and one by Smith’s Research. Omar and his team have led more financings than anyone in the nation with 42 transactions, $2.47 billion in the past three years alone with a strong focus on activity in Arizona, West Virginia, Massachusetts and the Midwest. Omar received a B.A. with Honors in Economics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Northwestern University. Omar earned an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he was twice elected Student Body President.

Tom Dannenberg spent 20 years in financial services and commercial banking and has held a variety of leadership roles focused on municipal finance and the public sector. From 2012 to 2018 he was the Chief Executive Officer of Hutchinson, Shockey, Erley & Co., a privately-held investment bank and brokerage firm that specialized exclusively in municipal securities. In 2018 he led the sale of the firm to Huntington Bancshares, Inc., a Fortune 500 bank holding company. There he served as Senior Vice President and Group Head of the Government & Nonprofit Finance vertical, where he had responsibility for leading both capital markets and commercial bank business lines. He served for many years on the board of directors of the Bond Dealers of America, where he was Chair in 2017-18. Tom is an engaged alumnus of the University of Chicago, where he also serves as Chair of the Library Advisory Council.

Mr. Doe is President of Municipal Market Analytics, Inc. (MMA) which acquired Municipal Market Advisors in 2014. Mr. Doe founded and served as the CEO of Municipal Market Advisors, the leading independent research firm in the municipal industry, from its inception in 1995.

Ms. Frederick is the CFO of Battery Park City Authority, a NY State Authority commercial and residential real estate entity spanning the southwestern tip of Manhattan.  She manages all financial operations, including its municipal bonds portfolio and its investments portfolio. She previously served in senior financing roles at Citigroup, GE Capital, Fieldstone Private Capital Group, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Chase Manhattan Bank. Her expertise includes fixed income derivatives, mergers and acquisitions, commercial lending and global infrastructure project finance. She holds an MBA and BA from the University of Michigan, attended Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Jouy en Josas, France and previously served as a FINRA Registered Securities Representative and held Series 7 and 63 licenses. She serves on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and on the Board of Governors of the Municipal Forum of New York.

Dominic Garcia is Chief Pension Investment Strategist for CBRE Investment Management. In this role, he is focused on developing solutions for pension funds looking to expand their investments in infrastructure. Dominic, who has 16 years’ experience in the investment and pension industry, joined the firm from the Public Employees Retirement System of New Mexico, where he served as Chief Investment Officer. In that role, Dominic worked with stakeholders on enhancing plan sustainability, established a risk budget and delegation of investment authority to staff, and created a risk-based approach to portfolio management. Prior to his role at New Mexico, Dominic served on the Investment Committee and was a Senior Funds Alpha Manager for the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.

Shayne is the Senior Manager of Research for GFOA and has been a leader in developing the practice and technique of long-term financial planning and policies for local government. He started GFOA’s long-term financial planning and policy consulting offering in 2002 and has been working with governments on financial planning and policies ever since. Shayne has worked with many governments of different sizes and types on financial planning and policies across the United States and Canada.

Lynnette Kelly was the former President and CEO of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), retiring in September 2019 after leading the self-regulatory organization for 12 years. The MSRB’s mission is to protect investors, state and local government issuers and other municipal entities, and the public interest by promoting a fair and efficient municipal securities market. In addition to her management responsibilities, Ms. Kelly provided strategic counsel to the MSRB Board of Directors and developed long-range strategic goals and initiatives in support of the MSRB’s mission. She is currently serving on several corporate and non-profit boards, consulting on municipal market matters and teaching.

Prior to her current appointment at Barnard College, Sanda served for 10 years as associate vice president of finance at the University of California’s Office of the President. From 2017 to 2023, she was a managing director at UBS. Earlier in her career, she worked in public finance investment banking focused on higher education and not-for-profit clients. Sandra is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and she received her master’s in public policy from the University of Chicago.

Colin has more than 15 years of experience in the municipal bond market. Prior to BondLink, Colin managed the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ borrowing needs from 2008 to 2015, issuing close to $25 billion in bonds and notes. His work was distinguished for its innovation, lauded by groups such as the NFMA and SIFMA, and earned two national deal of the year awards from The Bond Buyer. A big focus of his time was on boosting the state’s transparency to investors. Colin studied public finance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Shawn is Senior Vice President & Portfolio Manager at First Trust Advisors. He previously worked as a portfolio manager for Nuveen’s municipal fixed income team, focusing primarily on national accounts and environmental, social and governance portfolios. Shawn joined Nuveen in 2009 to start up a research team supporting separately managed accounts. He previously provided credit analysis for Moody’s Investors Service where he covered a wide variety of municipal sectors, including general obligation, special tax, water and sewer, public power, airports, transportation, municipally owned hotels and other publicly supported projects. He began working in the investment industry in 2002.

Mike is a 35+ year veteran of Bloomberg LP.  He is currently working as a Product Manager for Bloomberg’s Fixed Income Index business (Bloomberg Index Services Limited). In his current role he is working on the development of the new technology platform that is used for building and producing the Fixed Income indices. Mike also lends his subject matter expertise in the development of the Bloomberg family of Municipal Indices. Prior to joining the Bloomberg Index business Mike spent the 20 years as a Fixed Income Product Manager and Application Specialist for the Core Terminal, and almost a decade with the Municipal Data team as a Senior Analyst in the Municipal Data group. Mike has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Ithaca College in Ithaca NY.

Alex Wallace is a 28-year veteran of the municipal securities industry with broad experience across many aspects of municipal finance.  He currently is a Managing Director and Head of the Higher Education/Nonprofits practice at Loop Capital Markets, a prominent minority-owned securities firm.  He spent 11 years (2009-2020) at U.S. Bank, where he started the U.S. Bancorp Municipal Products Group and served as the Head of the Public Finance Group since inception. Previously, Mr. Wallace was Co-Head of the Municipal Securities Group at Wachovia Securities (1996-2008) and was responsible for the Public Finance Group. Mr. Wallace also led a number of other businesses including Municipal Credit Origination, Syndications, and Municipal Leasing. He began his career in the public sector working for the Department of Revenue and the State Treasurer’s Office of the State of North Carolina.