Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Bob Cusack has been an investment professional for over 30 years, beginning in public finance investment banking at First Boston Corp. in New York City. Over the course of his finance career, he has managed bank and insurance company portfolios and advised a five-star Morningstar municipal bond mutual fund. He currently manages balanced and high yield municipal portfolios. Prior to joining WhaleRock, Bob was Chief Investment Officer at Preferred Asset Management LLC, a private wealth advisory he co-founded in 1997. During his 12 year tenure at Preferred, he advised institutional clients and private investors on matters of investment policy, asset allocation, manager selection and strategic investments. Bob has been a speaker at industry conferences nationally and has written for the business press.Active in civic affairs, Bob serves by gubernatorial appointment on two state boards with finance responsibilities: the Tobacco Settlement Financing Corp. (TSFC) and the Refunding Bond Authority. He also is a past trustee of a municipal pension plan where he urged reallocation of asset classes, strategies and change of managers which produced performance returns in excess of the State fund. He has devoted his efforts to several educational institutions and city government in East Providence, where he was a City Council member and Assistant Mayor, 2006-2010. He also served on the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Financing Transportation Infrastructure in 2008. Bob is a 1977 graduate of Fordham University where he majored in Economics, and did graduate studies at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Bergstresser's research focuses on municipal finance and on the impact of taxation, regulation, and market structure on financial markets. This research has been published in the Journal of Law and Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Public Economics, and has been widely cited in both the academic and business press.He earned a Ph.D. in Economics at MIT, and earned an A.B. at Stanford. In 2006 and 2007, he worked for the investment manager Barclays Global Investors, serving in London as Head of European Credit Research. Prior to graduate school, he worked for the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C.View Full Biography

Steve Hancox has served in the New York State Comptroller’s Office for nearly 34 years, overseeing all audits and other services provided to local governments and schools districts since March of 2000. Steve currently oversees a staff of 340 in Albany and seven regional offices around the state that provide a range of audit, research, technical assistance and training services to all local governments and schools in New York State. Each year the Division issues approximately 400 audit reports, trains over 12,000 local officials, issues a dozen research reports, answers nearly 4,000 technical assistance requests, and processes over 30,000 financial reports from all local governments.

Michael McGee is a senior principal and bond attorney in the Detroit office of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone. His public finance practice includes representing governmental issuers of all types as well as underwriters and other market participants. Mr. McGee assisted with the drafting of Michigan’s robust emergency manager law, 2011 PA 4 (predecessor law to 2012 PA 436), and served as a Special Assistant Attorney General in legal defense of PA 4. He currently represents the City of Detroit and Mayor Dave Bing in its ongoing restructuring, and represented Mayor Bing regarding the Financial Stability Agreement negotiated with the State of Michigan in 2012 under which the City presently is operating. He is a member of NABL, the ABA State and Local Government Law Section, and the State Bar of Michigan Public Corporation Law Section.

Marcia is a member of Moody’s State Ratings team, based in New York, and is the lead analyst for the states of Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island and Utah and serves as back-up analyst for several other states. Marcia has worked extensively on the development and implementation of analytical enhancements to Moody’s assessment of the credit implications of state and local government pension finance.Prior to joining Moody’s in late 2010, Marcia held positions in government and the non-profit sector focused on public sector budgetary oversight and research. These positions included Deputy Comptroller for Budget for the New York City Comptroller’s Office, Deputy Research Director and Chief Economist at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, and Chief Economist and Director of Fiscal and Economic Analysis at the Office of the State Deputy Comptroller of the New York State Comptroller’s Office. Previously, Marcia worked for the New York City Economic Development Corporation and was Assistant Professor of Economics at Vassar College.Marcia received a BA in economics from the State University of New York College at Purchase and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Art Smith was appointed EVP, Chief Marketing Officer of Union Bank in July 2009. His responsibilities include Union Bank and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ businesses operating in the U.S. Prior to joining Union Bank, Mr. Smith served as head of brand marketing at Wachovia, Chief Marketing Officer at McGladrey (a division of H&R Block) and Global Chief Marketing Office at Duke Energy. He began his marketing career in 1985 with Xerox Corporation in Rochester, NY, where he rose to the head of global marketing across multiple business units during his 17 years with the firm. He holds an MBA from the University of Rochester.

Joe Lhota, a Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City, has held a unique balance of leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. He has successfully led complex organizations while consistently exceeding the delivery of mission critical results.Joe was an integral part of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s core management team. He was the City’s Budget Director in Mayor Giuliani’s first term and Deputy Mayor for Operations during the second term. In 2011 and 2012 Joe was Chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.Prior to joining the Giuliani administration, Joe was an investment banker for 15 years. He was an acknowledged leader in public finance and assisted in the financing of infrastructure projects throughout the United States. Following the Giuliani administration, Joe held executive positions in the Cablevision Systems Corporation and the Madison Square Garden Company.Joe is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Business School. He is a trustee of the City University of New York. He was born in the Bronx, a son of a New York City police lieutenant and the grandson of a New York City firefighter and taxi driver. Joe and his family live in Brooklyn.

Kim Rueben is a Senior Fellow of the Urban Institute and director of the State and Local Finance Initiative of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Her work examines issues of state and local public finance focusing on state budget and tax issues, intergovernmental relations, fiscal institutions, municipal bond markets, and the economics of education. In addition to her position at TPC, Dr. Rueben is an adjunct fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). Dr. Rueben received her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996.