Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Steve Pulley has over 30 years of experience in the fixed income institutional sales and trading arena. He joined Crews & Associates in 1984 working as an institutional salesman prior to taking on additional responsibilities as a trader of corporate bonds and CMO’s. He initiated an institutional sales group concentrating on larger tiered clients. In 2008, he began serving in an executive role with the firm promoting strategic development. In his current position he participates in industry discussion panels, roundtables and lobbying efforts as it pertains to fixed income securities. He has a degree in finance from Arkansas State University.

James “J.R.” Rieger is Managing Director and Global Head of Fixed Income, at S&P Dow Jones Indices. With over 30 years of fixed income experience, J.R. leads S&P Dow Jones Indices’ global fixed income efforts, overseeing a team of subject matter specialists tasked with the creation and management of fixed income indices around the globe.Under J.R.’s management, S&P Dow Jones Indices has launched a global suite of fixed income indices, which includes a focus on transparency for municipal, corporate, and high-yield bonds, senior loans, commercial paper, sovereign debt, credit default swaps, Sukuk securities, and the Australian bond market. Recent innovations include the S&P 500� Bond Index covering corporate bonds issued by the companies in the S&P 500, the S&P U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, as well as indices that track the global developed sovereign, China onshore, Pan Asia, ESG, Indian, and African bond markets.J.R. serves as the firm’s voice to media outlets on the bond markets, in addition to performance and attribution topics. His research and unique metric innovations are frequently cited in national publications, and he has contributed as a guest on CNBC’s Squawk Box and Bloomberg News. He frequently speaks to industry leaders at conferences around the world on the current state of the global debt markets.Previously, J.R. was vice president, global head of fixed income evaluations at Standard & Poor’s Securities Evaluations, Inc. Active in the financial community, J.R. is a member of the Municipal Bond Club of New York, New York Society of Security Analysts, Municipal Analysts Group of New York, and the National Federation of Municipal Analysts. In 2012, J.R. also served as Adjunct Professor at Adelphi University’s Robert B. Willumstad School of Business, teaching Investments for the graduate school program.J.R. holds a B.S. from Widener University and an MBA from Adelphi University.��

Eric Friedland has over 20 years of municipal bond credit analysis experience, covering a wide range of sectors. Eric currently serves as Head of Municipal Credit research for Schroders Investment Management. In this role, Eric is a senior member of Schroders extensive global fixed income research team and oversees the fi rm�s municipal bond research and analysis. Prior to Schroders, Eric was a senior member of the public fi nance management team at Fitch Ratings, responsible for overseeing credit criteria and policy for the group. In his role, he had signifi cant interaction with investors in communicating Fitch�s view on macro issues affecting municipal credits and also served as a member of the firm�s global credit risk team which identified both economic and market risks across asset classes worldwide. Eric�s prior positions included Director of Municipal Research at Belle Haven Investments, Director in the Public Finance Group at Financial Security Assurance and Senior Analyst at Moody�s Investors Service. His analytical activities focused on securities issued to fi nance. Eric has experience with a diverse range of sectors, including health care, water, sewer, electric, airport, toll road systems, municipal project fi nance, tax-backed, redevelopment, Mello-Roos, higher education and lease-backed fi nancings. Eric began his career in the financial services industry as an auditor at Ernst and Whinney in New York. Mr. Friedland is a frequent speaker at industry events and has recently given presentations at conferences sponsored by the Bond Buyer, the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, Bloomberg, and the Bond Dealers Association. In addition, he is frequently quoted in the press, appearing in articles published by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, The Bond Buyer, Reuters, and Bloomberg. Eric is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany where he earned his BA. Eric holds an MS in Professional accounting from Northeastern University and an MBA in Finance from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Eric is a CFA Charterholder. He served as Chairman of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts in 2006 and was a Board member for seven years. Eric currently serves as Treasurer and Board Member of the Municipal Analyst Group of New York Board (MAGNY).

James E. Spiotto is a Managing Director of Chapman Strategic Advisors LLC, the consulting subsidiary of Chapman and Cutler LLP.� Prior to retiring as a partner in the law firm of Chapman and Cutler LLP, he represented issuers, indenture trustees, bondholders, banks, insurance companies, institutional investors and funds in litigation, bankruptcy or workouts of more than 400 troubled debt financings in more than 35 different states and in foreign countries as well.� Mr. Spiotto represented clients in the resolution of troubled state and local debt financings, most recently in the Sierra Kings Health Care District, Jefferson County, Alabama and Mendocino Coast Health Care District Chapter 9 cases and has testified before the United States Senate and House Judiciary Committees in conjunction with the amendments to the Bankruptcy Code involving municipal bankruptcy.� He is a past president of the Society of Municipal Analysts and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Civic Federation of Chicago.� He is the author of Municipalities in Distress? available from Amazon.com and Primer on Municipal Debt Adjustment.� He has written numerous articles on municipal defaults and bankruptcy, and he is a co-author of the treatise The Law of State and Local Government Debt Financing (Thompson West) and author of chapters on municipal defaults and bankruptcy in The Handbook of Municipal Bonds, Sylvan Feldstein and Fran Fabozzi, editors, and on financial emergencies in the Oxford Handbook of State and Local Government Finance, Robert D. Ebel and John E. Peterson, editors.� He is also the co-owner and co-publisher of MuniNetGuide.com, an online resource specializing in municipal-related research and information concerning state and local government, including public finance, infrastructure, job market data and economic statistics and analysis.

As Managing Analyst, Bob Nelson oversees the MMD analyst team as well as TM3 operations and is increasingly involved in municipal product management for Thomson Reuters. He got his start in the municipal market as an operations specialist on the MMD analyst desk in 1997, and joined the analyst team writing municipal yield curves and market commentary/research shortly thereafter. Initially, Bob’s focus was primarily on a handful of specialty states before moving into a generalist role focusing on MMD’s generic national yield curves, and writing intra-day as well as longer term market commentary for the MMD Fundamental product.He also worked briefly for Thomson IFR Markets covering taxable fixed income sectors, before rejoining the municipal group in late 2006 to oversee production of all TM3/MMD content and yield curves.  Most recently, Bob has been actively involved in broader municipal product management at Thomson Reuters.  Bob is a CFA charterholder and has a BS from Boston College.

Bernard B. Beal is Chief Executive Officer of M. R. Beal & Company. Mr. Beal founded the firm in 1988 following a successful career of nine years in municipal and corporate finance at Shearson Lehman Hutton. Mr. Beal has served on numerous boards and authorities including the New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Securities Industry Association, Public Securities Association, the National Association of Securities Professionals, Carleton College and the National Foundation for Affordable Housing. Mr. Beal served as Chair of A Better Chance. Mr. Beal currently serves as Vice-Chair the SIFMA Committee on Diversity and serves as the incoming Chair the SIFMA Foundation for Investor Education.Bernard Beal earned an MBA in 1979 from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Palo Alto, CA. Three years earlier he graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota.

Charles A. Giordano is a senior director in Fitch Ratings U. S. public finance group.  Charles is responsible for ratings and analysis of state and local housing finance agencies, military privatizations and various real estate financings.Prior to joining Fitch in 1999, Charles was an assistant director for the New York City Housing Authority, where he was responsible for strategic planning in the asset management and private market operations department.Charles earned a BBA from Niagara University and an MBA from Adelphi University.

Doug Lamb is a partner in the Richmond office of McGuireWoods. His representative engagements include successfully closed transactions in 45 states involving tax-exempt, taxable, tax credit and direct-pay bonds. The financed projects range from traditional state and local infrastructure needs, such as schools, higher education, jails, courthouses and water, sewer and solid waste facilities, to renewable energy, energy efficiency and economic development projects.As a result, his work spans all types of obligations and credits, such as operating and capital leases, subject to appropriation and moral obligations, revenue pledges, limited tax pledges, full faith and credit obligations, liquidity and credit enhancement arrangements from third party insurers and financial institutions and non-recourse, project finance. Many of these transactions have used public-private partnerships and other subsidies such as federal historic, energy and new markets tax credits and corresponding state tax credits. Recently, Mr. Lamb has served as bond, lender's and underwriter’s counsel on innovative financing structures using qualified school construction, qualified zone academy, qualified energy conservation and new clean renewable energy programs, new markets tax credits and the federal 1603 grant in lieu of tax credits. Some of his prior engagements have involved issuances of recovery zone facility and economic development bonds, gulf opportunity zone bonds and direct-pay build America bonds. Mr. Lamb received his J.D. from the T.C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond in 1998 and his B.A. from Washington and Lee University in 1993.