June 03, 2024
Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Municipal Finance

The Center for Municipal Finance, part of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, today announced six new members to join the Board of Advisors. Comprised of leaders from across public finance, including finance, the investment industry, research, and more, the Board of Advisors is tasked with ensuring that the Center works hand-in-hand with practitioners and leaders in the field to further CMF’s mission.

“We are thrilled to welcome these six exceptional public finance professionals to the CMF Advisory Board. They represent a broad range of perspectives, but they share a deep commitment to excellence in research and professional development,” said Justin Marlowe, research professor at Harris and director of CMF. “They, along with our other outstanding incumbent Board members, will expand and extend CMF’s impact on our field.”

The new members of the Board of Advisors are:

  • Lelia Barbour, Deputy Director, Office of Capital Markets, US Department of the Treasury
  • Omar Daghestani, Managing Director, Stifel
  • Tom Dannenberg, AM’03, former Managing Director, Huntington Securities
  • Pamela Frederick, CFO, Battery Park City Authority
  • Sandra Kim, MPP’00, CFO, St. Mary’s College of California
  • Mike Olander, Municipals Business Manager, Bloomberg

In recent months, CMF has expanded its impact through the inaugural Harris Policy Innovation Challenge, a program that allows students from Harris and across UChicago to apply insights, analytical skills, and creativity to devise solutions to one of the thorniest challenges facing the city of Chicago, $35 billion in unfunded pension, which has vexed local policymakers for decades. The Challenge builds on CMF’s ongoing work in areas like data distribution and analysis, executive education, and podcasting, among many others.

The Center for Municipal Finance (CMF) enables students and faculty to engage the major financial issues of the day facing state and local governments in the United States and around the globe. Some of the topical and enduring issues of municipal finance include financing infrastructure, the use of municipal bonds, privatization, pension liabilities and the efficacy of reform, tax base adequacy, and more.