Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Wally Kulakowski is a managing director in the Public Finance group at Mesirow Financial. He specializes in a wide variety of infrastructure financing.Wally has over 25 years of public finance experience, including municipal debt financings in water and sewer, state revolving fund, power, waste-to-energy, public-private infrastructure and project finance transactions.� Prior to joining Mesirow Financial in 2015, he served as a managing director at Guggenheim Securities, where he developed P3 infrastructure projects and engineered a buy-side asset acquisition structure using an innovative municipal special purpose vehicle.� Wally was a 20-year veteran of Citigroup where he headed the solid waste and state revolving fund finance practices and co-headed the water and sewer finance practice.� He also worked at Stone & Youngberg and Roosevelt & Cross. Previously, Wally administered air pollution control programs for the State of Indiana and the City of Indianapolis, and was a Washington DC based energy and environmental consultant.Wally earned a BSc from McGill University.�

Andy is an Assistant Vice President �– Analyst on the Southwest Local Government Ratings Team located in Dallas Texas. He is responsible for a variety of credits in Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas, ranging from cities, counties, school districts, water and sewer enterprise systems, municipal utility districts, other special districts, and economic development enterprises. Andy recently published “Ten Years After Katrina, New Orleans Better Prepared for Future Storms,” and “Recent Missouri Floods a Credit Negative for Local Governments.” �Prior to joining Moody’s, Andy was an Officer in the US Coast Guard dedicated primarily to law enforcement and port security related missions. Andy is also a graduate of the US Navy’s prestigious Naval Dive and Salvage Training Center. He holds a B.A. in History from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is a graduate of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin where he attained a Master of Public Affairs degree.�

Bola Kushimo is an analyst on the Southwest Local Government Ratings Team located in Dallas.� She is responsible for credits in Oklahoma and Texas.Prior to joining Moody’s , Bola worked for AmeriCredit Financial Services in Arlington TX. Bola holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of North Texas, and a Honors B.S. in Psychology from University of Texas, Arlington. �

Michael Imber is a Senior Director in Alvarez & Marsal’s Public Sector practice in New York, specializing in municipal distress and performance improvement. He has 25+ years of experience counseling clients on bankruptcies, workouts and municipal consulting assignments. Michael has also co-authored several white papers in the municipal restructuring sector including his most recent publication, Taking the Fiscal Pulse of Local Government.Michael has deep municipal chapter 9 bankruptcy experience:� he represented major unsecured creditors in the City of Detroit bankruptcy.� He generated 100% recoveries for the largest unsecured creditor claimants in the Jefferson County and the Mammoth Lakes chapter 9 cases.For the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, Michael led an engagement that identified more than $300 million of opportunities in the Nassau County budget. He also represented the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NJ Transit, and other major municipal transit authorities in a successful out-of-court workout of a major advertising vendor contract that resulted in $125 million in senior lender and equity concessions and $80 million in concessions from the transit authorities.�Prior to joining A&M, Michael was a Senior Vice President at the Centre Insurance Company where he monitored, restructured and developed the exit strategy for a multi-billion dollar credit surety portfolio. His work included the disposition of Section 8 public housing and other real estate related assets. Previously, Michael served as a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers Business Recovery Services Practice, where he represented creditors committees, banks and debtors in and out of the chapter 11 bankruptcy process.Michael has a BA in Finance from University of Illinois and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, Columbia University.

Vikram Rai is the Head of Citi’s Municipal Strategy group. Vikram also covers Short Duration Strategy. He has regularly been ranked in the top 3 in the Institutional Investor and the Greenwich client surveys. Formerly, he was in Citi US Rates trading and prior to joining Citi in 2007, Vikram worked for the hedge fund, Old Lane LLP in the private equity division. Vikram has an MBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago and is a CFA charter holder.

Giovanni has been married for 15 years to his wife Elisa and has three children, two of whom attend Carroll Elementary School. He has lived the American dream. After receiving his BS in Physics he pursued his MBA in Finance from Santa Clara University. After school Giovanni went on to work for a DFW based venture capital/private equity firm.Giovanni is now the owner and President of his own small business, Texas Adventure Capital LLC, where he provides business services to various investment fund managers and business owners. His focus is investing in Texas-based small businesses. Prior to that Giovanni was a Senior Vice President at an investment firm where he managed the loan and equity portfolios of various American businesses. Before that Giovanni held various positions at computer engineering companies primarily centered around semiconductor design and Internet products.Giovanni was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2012 and is serving his second term representing District 98 which encompasses all or part of Grapevine, Colleyville, Southlake, Keller, Westlake, North Fort Worth and Haslet. He currently serves on the following committees: Appropriations, Local & Consent, and Investments & Financial Services where he serves as the Chair of the Bond Indebtedness sub-committee. �He voluntarily serves as the Secretary of the House Energy Caucus and on the public school finance work-group during the interim session and has become a champion for public education, particularly focusing on equitable funding for robin-hood districts.

Mr. Meister has 36 years of experience as a municipal finance investment banker.� He joined Merrill Lynch in August of 2001 as a Managing Director with responsibility for heading the West and Southwest regions. Mr. Meister is currently responsible for managing Bank America Merrill Lynch’s Central States Region. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Rich served as Chairman and CEO of eBondTrade, an Internet based broker dealer specializing in the sale of municipal securities. He was also a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs where he was responsible for the West and Southwest Regions and was co-head of the healthcare and higher education group. Mr. Meister’s experience includes financings for State and Local Governments and Agencies, Universities, School Districts, Hospitals and Health Systems, Airports, Transit Agencies, Toll Roads and Tobacco Corporations.Mr. Meister has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from The Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Ramirez is a Managing Director with Hilltop Securities Inc. (formerly First Southwest Company) and is based in Austin, Texas. Mr. Ramirez is a 28 year veteran of the public finance industry. He has been involved in all forms of debt issuance for many issuers across the country. Prior to joining his present firm in 2008, Mr. Ramirez worked at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. His professional career began in public accounting with Arthur Andersen in Houston in 1975 and his public finance career began in 1987 as co-founder, president and CEO of Apex Securities. Although Mr. Ramirez has worked in all sectors of Public Finance, since joining Hilltop he has been primarily focused on transportation infrastructure financings. He represents four Regional Mobility Authorities in Texas as well as a transit issuer and a city base development.Mr. Ramirez has served on various boards and commissions at the request of two former Houston Mayors and a former Governor. He presently sits on the Williamson County CASA Board. Mr. Ramirez has also served on the Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) of Texas board and served as its first Hispanic Chairman in 1999-2000.�

Ron Mangus was appointed as the Executive Director of the Indiana Bond Bank in February 2015.� He has served in various capacities with the Bond Bank for the past 20 years including Compliance Analyst, Program Director and Deputy Director.� During his 20 year tenure, the Bond Bank has assisted approximately 550 units of government by issuing debt of $18 billion in 280 series.Ron began his career in public service with the Indiana Department of Revenue as an analyst.� He holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Indiana University, Indianapolis and B.A. in Political Science from Purdue University, West Lafayette.��