Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Mark Paris is a Managing Director and heads the Financial Products and Strategies Group within Public Finance at Citi. This business focuses on derivative products and structured products for all municipal clients, including higher education and healthcare. Over his 24 year career as an investment banker and manager, Mark has worked with over 150 healthcare and higher education clients. During his tenure at Citi, Mr. Paris has also managed the Higher Education Group and continues to lead Citi’s Corporate Partnerships initiative.Mark began his investment banking career at Merrill Lynch in 1988 as a financial products origination banker for healthcare. Since that time, he has been responsible for the marketing and execution of tax-exempt, client-based, derivative transactions, lending products and other financial products. Mr. Paris is known throughout the Street as the original designer of basis swap applications for municipal issuers in 1990. His team is also responsible for the development of balance sheet risk metrics. Over the years, he has worked on several committees to craft appropriate metrics for managing new rules and policies affecting the municipal markets.Mark has served on several not-for-profit boards, including Muhlenberg College, Gill St. Bernard’s School, Solaris Health System and the United Methodist Church in New Jersey. Currently, Mark is Chair of the Peabody Institute National Advisory Council at Johns Hopkins University. Mark received his Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University and has undergraduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University and Muhlenberg College.

John Renken is a graduate of DePauw University, University of Michigan (Ross) Business School and Indiana University (Maurer) School of Law. Mr. Renken joined the law firm of Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP (“Hawkins” or the “Firm”) as a partner in January 2006. Prior to joining Hawkins, he was a senior principal at another law firm, where he had management responsibilities for offices of that firm in Michigan and Washington, D.C.His practice is focused on finance and transactional matters, with an emphasis on such activity within the health care, higher education and housing sectors. Mr. Renken has been lead counsel for issuers, borrowers, underwriters, lenders and credit providers in connection with more than $15 billion of financing activity, and he has participated in transactions in nearly every state during his more than 20 years of practice.Mr. Renken is the individual primarily responsible for the Firm’s bond counsel relationships with Trinity Health Credit Group, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation and Nevada Housing Division; the Firm’s underwriter’s counsel engagements with Oregon Health and Science University, Providence Health & Services, Catholic Healthcare Partners, Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, Hawaii Pacific Health, William Beaumont Hospitals, Greater Fairbanks (Alaska) Community Hospital and MultiCare (Washington) Health System; and the Firm’s corporate/institution counsel engagements with Wake Forest Baptist and Cadence Health System.Mr. Renken has advised government entity clients with respect to constitutional and legal authority, contracts, pending legislation, proposed regulations, litigation, compliance matters and federal tax programs. For private sector clients, he has organized and maintained private business entities, including assistance with applications for tax-exempt status, merger/affiliation work, §501(c)(3) joint venture documentation, public-private partnerships, start-up activities, compliance matters and on-going general legal representation.Mr. Renken has served as a speaker at conferences of the National Association of Bond Lawyers, the American Bar Association and the National Association of Local Housing Finance Authorities. He has authored articles on a variety of issues relating to tax-exempt financing which are relied upon by clients and lawyers around the country. Mr. Renken is a member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers, the American Health Lawyers Association and the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys.

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.