Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Jose Ursua is a global economist at Goldman Sachs, where he has worked on a wide range of topics in macroeconomics and finance. Among these, he has contributed to his team’s work on BRICs projections, cross-country growth comparisons, economic stagnations, impact of uncertainty shocks, public debt build-ups, post-housing bust recoveries, pricing of disaster risk, and the Olympics and Economics, among many others.His research has been published in prestigious academic journals, and he has contributed to editorial pieces in the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets. Mr. Ursua received a PhD in Economics from Harvard University, and holds BAs in Economics and Law from ITAM, in Mexico, where he also worked as an economist at the Central Bank and at the Finance Ministry.

James Costello, Managing Director, Head of the Higher Education/Non-Profit Group, joined J.P. Morgan in June 2012, and has a wide range of experience working with public and private universities, research institutions and non-profits. He has completed tax-exempt and taxable bond issues, tender offers, real estate financings and student housing transactions. Mr. Costello began his career in Public Finance in 1988 after graduating from Dartmouth College.

Kendra E Fretz works for Meridiam Infrastructure North America in New York. In her role as Analyst, Kendra works primarily on deal origination and execution. Most recently, she was involved in the Presidio Parkway Project in San Francisco, which closed in June 2012. Prior to joining Meridiam, Kendra worked with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia focusing on community development investment and in business development for a Philadelphia charter school. Kendra holds a Master of City and Regional Planning and Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Latin American Studies both from the University of Pennsylvania.

Gary Hall has more than 15 years of experience in public finance, including stints working in government, law and investment banking. Mr. Hall’s municipal bonds experience includes serving as lead banker for over $12 billion of municipal issuances.During his career, he has worked on transactions for the states of California Ohio and Michigan; cities of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, and San Francisco; school districts in Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, San Diego and Beverly Hills; and airports in Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, Chicago, and New Orleans along with other public utilities and transportation issuers. Prior to his investment banking career, Mr. Hall practiced law in the corporate finance group of Gardner, Carton & Douglas, served several posts in Mayor Richard Daley’s administration with the City of Chicago, including serving as a Senior Budget Analyst for the Water and Sewer Departments. He was also a White House Fellow assigned to the U.S. Department of Treasury.

Mr. Perl has served as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) since 2009. In this role, he is responsible for retail and wholesale rate setting associated with $700M in annual operating revenues across the Water, Power and Sewer enterprises. He also is responsible for debt issuance and management for the SFPUC’s multi-billion dollar capital program as well as accounting service operations.He has previously served as the Budget Director at San Francisco International Airport as well as the Deputy Director in the Mayor’s Office of Budget and Policy. Charles started his municipal finance career at the City of Palo Alto in 1999 and served as the Budget Manager for a number of years. Charles has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from NYU and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota.

Virginia Wong is a member of Nixon Peabody's� Project and Public Finance practice groups, resident in the New York City office.� Her practice focuses on capital markets transactions involving infrastructure and transportation assets and on municipal finance transactions involving those assets as well.�� Virginia represents both issuers and underwriters in a full range of transactions including public offerings and private placements.� She also serves as counsel to USDOT with respect to its TIFIA and RRIF programs.

Kaveh Safavi, M.D., J.D. is Accenture’s health industry lead for North America. He oversees the payer, provider and public health offerings and is responsible for the health strategy, growth initiatives and market capabilities.Safavi joined Accenture from Cisco, in 2011, where he led the global healthcare practice. Prior to that, he was Thompson Reuter’s chief medical officer of Health Businesses and United Healthcare’s vice president of medical affairs. He also has served in leadership roles at Solucient, Humana, HealthSpring and Alexian Hospital Network.As a seasoned executive, Safavi brings more than two decades of leadership experience to Accenture Health. He’s responsible for the creation of the Center for Healthcare Improvement at Health Businesses of Thompson Reuters and, while at HealthSpring, he established one of the Midwest’s first electronic medical record systems. He’s published numerous papers and is quoted on healthcare issues in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and the Economist. Safavi has earned the distinction of both medical and law degrees, an M.D. from Loyola University School of Medicine and a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law. He is board-certified in internal medicine and pediatrics and completed his residency at the University of Michigan Medical Center.

Wayne M. Kezirian is senior vice president and general counsel of Johnson & Wales University, a tax exempt, not-for profit university which has its main campus in Providence (12,000 students) and regional campuses in Charlotte, Denver and North Miami. In addition to his duties as general counsel, Mr. Kezirian supervises JWU’s policy and compliance functions and is actively involved in the university’s ongoing planning activities.While in private practice, Mr. Kezirian assisted the university with a variety of matters in many parts of the country including the development and major expansion of its Providence campuses, the acquisition and development of its three regional campuses, tax-exempt bond financing transactions, the planned closing of two regional campuses (in connection with the strategic development of a new campus in Charlotte, North Carolina) and the development of tax-exempt bond financed “privatized” student housing in Charlotte.Mr. Kezirian holds a J.D. degree from Union University – Albany Law School and a B.A. from Marist College.