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| Public Finance Leaders Forum 2011 |
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Speaker Profiles
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Stephan Butler is Vice President at Real Estate Group International, Inc. Mr. Butler has more than 15 years of experience managing capital projects for the private sector and providing related thought leadership to the public sector. Mr. Butler's services include consulting on real estate turnarounds and workouts, leveraging his track record in operational and P&L responsibility to provide detailed analyses of the time and costs entailed in completing or revising construction projects.
Mr. Butler currently serves as a Fellow in Strategic Initiatives for New York State's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he assists in crafting policy in the areas of infrastructure, smart growth, green energy production and alternative revenue opportunities. Mr. Butler holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Civil and Structural Engineering from New York’s Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, and an Executive MBA at Columbia Business School. |
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George Assad is Director of International Affairs, Blackstar Group LLC, bringing more than 20 years of experience in foreign affairs, public policy, global markets, and corporate finance. Mr. Assad serves on the U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Agreement Advisory Council to the White House and the U.S. Congress. He also is Co-Host of Capital Markets Live, a weekly radio program about the global economy, Wall Street Bailout, global financial crises, economic policy and legislation, and prescriptions for the financial markets.
Mr. Assad also continues to serve as a Global Strategist for Global Business Access. In that role, Mr. Assad is part of a team of 45 senior diplomats, ambassadors, and intelligence officials that advise Fortune 100 Companies and governments in Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean on Foreign Direct Investment, economic development, international trade, international relations, and security issues. Mr. Assad played a vital role in overseeing the Federal Bailout of the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late eighties. At first he served as an Oversight Asset Specialist at the Resolution Trust Corporation, overseeing portfolios totaling more than $1 Billion. As the RTC wound down its mission, George joined the FDIC when it absorbed the remainder of the Resolution Trust Corporation. Mr. Assad was responsible for launching the legacy organization’s Northeast Regional Office and oversaw the acquisition and sale of 24 financial institutions. He led the teams responsible for restructuring and recovering a portfolio of $4.6 Billion. For his exemplary service, Mr. Assad received two Outstanding Achievement Awards from the FDIC. Prior to joining the resolution Trust Corporation, Mr. Assad held a variety of corporate and investment banking roles.
Mr. Assad is fluent in three languages, English, Arabic, and French. George Assad was awarded a Masters of International Management cum laude from Thunderbird University in 1996 and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University. Mr. Assad is involved with a number of charitable organizations, including the Tsunami Hospital Foundation, which he founded and for which he received the 2006 Humanitarian Award from the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce. |
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Nathan Flynn is Director in the Infrastructure Investment Banking department of William Blair & Company, a Chicago-based investment banking and asset management firm. Mr. Flynn focuses on governmental and non-profit issuers and leads the firm’s efforts relating to Public Private Partnerships (“P3”), interest rate derivatives and other high level quantitative structuring engagements.
Mr. Flynn is an integral member of William Blair & Company’s P3 Team. His experience in this area includes acting as lead financial advisor to the City of Chicago on the $1.2 billion long-term concession of the Chicago Metered Parking System and the City of Chicago & Chicago Park District in connection with the $563 million long-term concession and lease of the four underground parking garages located beneath Chicago’s Millennium and Grant Parks. Mr. Flynn is currently working on several P3 infrastructure transactions, including active engagements in the cities of Hartford and Harrisburg.
Mr. Flynn heads up William Blair & Company’s Swap Advisory Team, acting as advisor and advocate to governmental and non-profit organizations regarding interest rate swaps. The firm has structured and executed a wide variety of derivative structures ranging from straightforward interest rate caps to those involving complex optionality.
Mr. Flynn joined William Blair & Company in 2003 after spending over five years at the investment banking firm of JPMorgan where he served in a similar capacity. During his professional career, Mr. Flynn has played an active role in structuring and executing a wide variety of traditional bond financed transactions ranging from new money general obligation issues to tax-increment refunding bonds. Clients he has served include a wide variety of state-level issuers, cities, local governments and non-profit organizations located throughout the Midwest and Northeast.
Mr. Flynn holds a B.A in Economics from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management. |
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Charles Jones is President and Chief Executive Officer of Inland Public Properties Development Inc. (IPPD), where he is responsible for designing and implementing the Company’s capital deployment and Public Private Partnership (P3) real estate strategy. IPPD is part of a multi-billion dollar Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Since 1985, Mr. Jones has focused on the development of innovative financing and capital structures for the funding and development of government real estate and infrastructure, and is a nationally recognized expert in governmental finance, leasing and P3’s. Many of Mr. Jones’ transactions have included the use of private sources of capital and lease structures designed to maximize governmental balance sheet utilization and liquidity. He has extensive experience structuring and implementing P3’s on a domestic and international basis, and has been responsible for several comprehensive legislative initiatives to adopt empowering P3 statutes, authorize specific projects and obtain budget approval. These initiatives have included providing expert testimony before legislative committees, as well as other elected officials and boards.
From 1998 to 2007, Mr. Jones served as President and Chief Executive Officer of CentraCore Properties Trust (CPT), a New York Stock Exchange Company that provided alternative sources of private capital and development expertise for governmental use real estate projects. Mr. Jones was a founder of CPT, a REIT, and guided the company in its initial public offering in 1998, and through its merger in 2007. He was responsible for the acquisition and development of a number of large scale governmental real estate projects using the P3 model while at CPT.
Mr. Jones was formerly an investment banker specializing in accessing capital for governmental real estate, lease structures, and P3’s. Mr. Jones, a 1973 Accounting & Finance graduate of the University of Colorado, began his career with KPMG as a Certified Public Accountant specializing in the taxation of real estate. He is a member of the American Institute of Certifies Public Accountants, and has held several public securities licenses issued by the National Association of Securities Dealers. |
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Michael Likosky is Director of the Center on Law & Public Finance and is Senior Fellow at New York University's Institute for Public Knowledge. He holds a doctorate from the Oxford University Law Faculty. Likosky has written five books on infrastructure, energy, as well as manufacturing and high technology growth strategies, including three with Cambridge University Press. His most recent book, Obama's Bank: Financing a Durable New Deal, looks at the proposed National Infrastructure Bank and P3s.
Likosky has held visiting posts and fellowships at Oxford University, New York University School of Law, Fordham Law School, University of Wisconsin Law School, and the University of Bonn. He has been a tenured professor of International Economic Law at the University of London Law School. Likosky is an Expert to the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on P3s. He is a legal expert to the United Nations World Investment Reports and World Development Reports on infrastructure, oil, gas, minerals, and clean energy P3s.
He advises federal and state officials, leading financial institutions (Credit Suisse, D. E. Shaw, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Prudential), major broadcasters such as ABC, CBS, ESPN, and NBC, and intergovernmental organizations. His work is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Markle Foundation, Institute for a New Reflection on Governance, World Affairs and the Global Economy, and also the Arts and Humanities Research Council. |
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Carlos Mendez is Senior Managing Partner and Board Member of ICP Capital. Mr. Mendez oversees divisional staffs in New York and London including, Sales & Trading, Banking & Origination and Advisory business units. ICP operates the largest private banking operation in the structured credit markets with over $53 billion in new asset backed issuance and several hundred billion in custom client solutions over the last five years.
From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Mendez was responsible for originating structured credit transactions for the firm including Mortgage Backed Securities Collateralized Loan Obligations, Collateralized Mortgage Obligations and other Asset Backed and Hybrid Securities. In 2008, he assumed a broader role with the expansion of the Sales & Trading and Advisory units. Prior to joining ICP, Mr. Mendez served as Head of Structured Product Origination at Guggenheim Capital Markets where he oversaw a team of professionals for the issuance of similar debt securities.
Mr. Mendez is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and holds a graduate certificate from the University of Washington. Mr. Mendez also holds Series 7 and 63 licenses. |
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Vipal Monga is Senior Writer for The Deal LLC, covering capital markets and Wall Street. He also pens the “Follow the Money” column in The Deal newsweekly, and directs The Deal’s award-winning web video program.
Prior to joining The Deal, Vipal was managing editor at Corporate Financing Week, where he also covered Wall Street. He also worked at Bridge News where held several beats from covering Canadian monetary policy to politics to asset management in the United States. He has also contributed freelance stories to several newspapers and magazines, such as Globe and Mail and The India Magazine and has appeared regularly on National Public Radio.
Vipal received a Bachelors of Arts degree in journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. |
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Marvin Morris is Founder & CEO of Bedrock Global. Mr. Morris has extensive experience in public finance, business and municipal law, and domestic and international development consulting. Prior to forming Bedrock Global, Mr. Morris was a counsel in a major law firm in Washington, DC. Mr. Morris’ practice included representing local business owners in corporate restructurings, real estate developers in the identification and use of government incentive programs, and South African municipalities in the due diligence and implementation of finance and economic development initiatives.
Prior to private practice, he was Special Counsel to the Chief Financial Officer of the District of Columbia for seven years, where he provided legal and strategic advice on appropriations, project financings, tax incentives and operational matters. Among other financings, Mr. Morris lead the finance team in the issuance of US$535 million Ballpark Revenue Bonds, related legislative approvals, and lease negotiations with Major League Baseball for the financing, construction, and use of the Washington Nationals Stadium. His government operations experience included co-chairing the committee on the reorganization of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and its 1,500 financial employees.
During the financial crisis of the Government of the District of Columbia (1997 – 2000), Mr. Morris was a senior financial analyst responsible for the development of the City’s five-year financial plan and budget. He also served as chief of staff to the budget officer and managed various cost-savings initiatives that were implemented to ensure that the city would regain fiscal balance between its revenues and expenditures.
Mr. Morris has over 20 years experience in advising small business owners on the formation, execution and exit strategies for their enterprises. He founded his first business as a college sophomore drafting business plans for small businesses. Mr. Morris has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. He is on the board of directors for the Earth Conservation Corps (www.ecc1.org), Step Afrika! (www.stepafrika.org), and the Washington Project for the Arts (www.wpadc.org). |
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Kevin Petrasic is Of Counsel in the Paul Hastings Financial Services practice group and is resident in the Washington, D.C. office. He advises financial services firms and depository institutions on a wide array of regulatory, legislative, transactional and compliance issues.
Mr. Petrasic has broad government experience, including serving as Special Counsel, Managing Director of External Affairs, Director of Congressional Affairs, Legislative Counsel, and Assistant Chief Counsel at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision, as well as Counsel to the former House Banking Committee. He has extensive understanding and experience working with the Federal banking agencies, the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees, the Treasury Department, other financial services regulators, and the financial and national media. Immediately prior to joining Paul Hastings, Mr. Petrasic served as Special Counsel to the Office of Thrift Supervision working extensively on that agency’s efforts to stem avoidable foreclosures and identify market-based solutions to the nation’s housing crisis.
Mr. Petrasic is a regular speaker at financial services industry conferences and seminars, appears on various news shows, including Bloomberg Television and Al Jazeera English Television, and is a frequent source for numerous financial publications, including the American Banker, Wall Street Journal, Reuters News Service, Bloomberg News, and BNA Banking Report, and various other national news publications. Mr. Petrasic holds a Juris Doctor from The Columbus School of Law of the Catholic University of America, and joint Bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science from the University of Delaware. |
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Jeffrey Smith is Managing Director with Provident Group, a boutique investment banking and advisory firm dedicated to servicing the middle markets through the structuring and private placement of client transactions.
Mr. Smith is a 30-year veteran of the global securities and banking industry. Prior to Provident Group, he was with HSBC in different roles, including Global Sector Head for Corporate and Investment Banking, Non-Bank Financial Institutions, US Head of Financial Institutions Investment Banking and Senior Advisor to US CEO for strategy, development, and transaction execution. He came from Morgan Stanley, where he was the founding manager of the Specialty Finance Investment Banking group.
Mr. Smith started his career at Smith Barney, Lehman Brothers, and Dean Witter. He possesses an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from St. Lawrence University. |
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