Rachel Perlman - Chairwoman
Rachel Perlman joined Stifel Financial as a Director in Municipal Sales in June 2022. She has served as Founder and Chairwoman of The Municipal Bond Women’s Forum since its inaugural event in 2015. Prior to joining Stifel Financial, Rachel helped reestablish the Municipal Bond department at Boenning & Scattergood. Rachel served on the board of Boenning & Scattergood from 2011-2014.
Prior to joining Boenning & Scattergood, Rachel worked in Institutional Sales at AH Williams (1991-1998). She began her career in 1986 at Tucker Anthony in Philadelphia and later joined Van Kampen Merritt (1988-1991). Rachel received her Bachelor's Degree in American Studies from Sweet Briar College.
Deborah Trachtenberg - Advisor to Board
Deborah Trachtenberg retired from Eaton Vance Management in September of 2021 rounding out a nearly five decade career in the municipal bond industry. As the Director of Municipal Trading, Trachtenberg helped to found Eaton Vance's municipal trading desk in 1997, following tenured stints as a municipal trader at Fidelity Investments, DLJ, and Chemical Bank. The desk she established at EV became an integral part of the firm's ability to create and implement its municipal investment strategies. She was viewed as a thought leader in the municipal market and a trailblazer for women in the industry.
Now, busier than ever, she can be found pursuing her life's passions as a mother, a grandmother, an avid world traveler, a passionate horticulturist, a humble Italian chef, a sports enthusiast, and the ultimate appreciator of her beloved dog, Stanley. While she is grateful for flexibility in her schedule and the ability to focus her energy outside of her career, she deeply misses the camaraderie of the municipal industry and the dynamism it provided in her life.
Ms. Trachtenberg is a board member for IronMatt.org and will continue to play an active role in the success of the Municipal Bond Women’s Forum.
Lindsey Wetzel - Advisor to Board
Lindsey Wetzel is a Managing Director and Head of The Consulting Group Fixed Income Specialist Team at Morgan Stanley. The team provides comprehensive coverage to Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors of all fixed income advisory solutions while helping advisors develop an appropriate fixed income allocation by identifying suitable managers, funds and strategies. Prior to her current role, Lindsey was Co-Head of Wealth Management Municipal Sales and was responsible for the development and distribution of tax-exempt fixed income sales ideas. Lindsey and her team leveraged firm wide strategy and content to drive and deliver the highest conviction sales ideas to financial advisors and their clients as they created and maintained their investment portfolios. First joining the firm in 2003, Lindsey spent 15 years in Municipal Trading last managing the firms short-term institutional trading desk. Lindsey has been on the board of the San Francisco Municipal Bond Club since 2005 and served as president in 2010 and 2015, she has also been a Co-Chair for the Municipal Bond Women’s Forum since 2018. Active in the community, Lindsey mentors elementary school students through Read Ahead and conducts alumni interviews on behalf Dartmouth College, where she earned her B.A. in 2002. Lindsey lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.
Mary Jo Guida - Secretary
Mary Jo Guida is a Senior Municipal Bond Evaluator for Bloomberg's Evaluated Pricing Service (BVAL), which provides objective and independent valuations to approximately 1 million municipal bonds. In this role, Guida works closely with product managers and engineers to deliver evaluations on taxable and high-grade, tax-exempt bonds. In addition, she oversees the team responsible for the quality control processes of BVAL's AAA Benchmark Curve. Guida is an experienced evaluator who employs relevant and innovative valuations models that leverage Bloomberg’s in-house analytics to support defendable pricing.
Prior to joining Bloomberg, Guida held several executive roles, including Vice President, Municipal Bond Trader at both RBC Capital Markets and Bartholomew & Co., as well as Vice President, Municipal Bond Broker at Chapedelaine & Co. Guida is an expert in the municipal market with the know-how to drive consistent pricing for municipal bonds. She is a past officer of the Women's Bond Club of New York and was an active participant in the Municipal Bond Club of Boston.
She earned a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Seton Hall University and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Providence College.
Colleen Meehan - Treasurer
Colleen Meehan retired in August 2023 from the position of Senior Vice President and Director, Tax-Exempt Money Market Fund Strategies for Dreyfus Cash Investment Strategies, a division of BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc. She was responsible for the management of Dreyfus’ national and state-specific tax-free money market portfolios. Ms. Meehan has been with BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc. since August 1999.
With over 30 years of experience in the municipal bond market, Ms. Meehan has maintained several positions on both the long and short end of the tax-exempt market.
Prior to joining BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc., she was Portfolio Manager at Prudential Investments since 1980, managing many different investment vehicles. Ms. Meehan managed Prudential’s Money Market Mutual Funds – national and state-specific – from 1994 to 1999, tax-exempt unit trusts from 1990 to 1994, long-term municipal bond portfolios from 1984 to 1990, and was a portfolio assistant from 1980 to 1984.
Ms. Meehan is on the Board of Governors of the Municipal Bond Club of New York. She has been active in several mentoring programs both internal and external and will continue to be a part of mentorship programs. Ms. Meehan will continue to take an active role in the annual Municipal Bond School and participate in several outside charitable venues. She has been a participant in several industry conferences representing the tax-exempt sector of the market, particularly Cranes Money Fund Symposium and iMoneyNet Money Market Expo.
Betsy Kiehn - Advisor to Board
Betsy Kiehn is a Managing Director and Head of Municipal Capital Markets. Ms. Kiehn oversees and coordinates the activities of municipal institutional sales, trading and underwriting in support of Stifel’s Public Finance issuer and municipal clients. Based in San Francisco, Ms. Kiehn is also a Senior Underwriter, a role she has held since 2013. As an underwriter, Ms. Kiehn annually brings to market nearly 200 new issues including high grade, high yield, fixed rate, floating rate and convertible structures in nearly every sector. Ms. Kiehn is a former President and current board member of the San Francisco Municipal Bond Club. Ms. Kiehn currently serves as Vice Chair of the SIFMA Municipal Securities Committee. Ms. Kiehn has been with Stifel since 2004, when she joined Stone & Youngberg, which Stifel acquired in 2011. Ms. Kiehn holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Vermont.
Lisa May - Advisor to Board
Lisa May is a Underwriter at Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. Ms. May is responsible for evaluating the market dynamics to determine the optimal structure, timing and price to deliver exceptional results for Stifel’s clients. Ms. May’s pricing experience includes general municipalities, school districts, higher education/student housing, charter schools and other issuers. Since joining the Underwriting & Syndication Desk in 2008, Lisa has been involved with more than 1400 senior-managed negotiated transactions totaling approximately $35 billion over the past 17 years, of which $1.3 billion were water/sewer issues. Ms. May began her career in the financial services industry in the Private Client Services Division at Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. She graduated from Regis University with a Bachelor of Science in Finance. Ms. May holds Series 7, 63, 50 and 5 licenses.
Barbara Smallwood - Advisor to the Board
Barbara Smallwood is Managing Director on the Institutional Municipal Sales team and is part of the Senior Management team at Citi. Along with covering top tier municipal accounts with over $300 billion AUM, she is responsible for hiring new talent as well as training new sales analysts.
Barbara began her career in Los Angeles as Sales Coordinator in high net worth before becoming Marketing Manager in retail sales for Smith Barney. After being transferred to Dallas in 1994 to manage the merger between Smith Barney and Shearson Lehman, she moved back to Los Angeles to start a career in institutional muni sales. In 2015, she and her wife, Maura, transferred to New York. In July, Barbara celebrated her 31st year at Citi.
As a member of the LGBTQ community, she is involved in LGBTQ recruiting for Citi and is a member of the Citi Pride Network along with various corporate initiatives and affinity groups, including Women and URM. She was also an active board member for the Los Angeles LGBT Center for eight years, which maintains the largest operation budget of any LGBTQ nonprofit in the country.
Leigh Nader - Advisor to the Board
Leigh Nader, CFA, is a Managing Director and Head of Assured Guaranty's Healthcare Underwriting Group. Her team is responsible for the origination and underwriting of bond insurance for hospital, private higher education, and nontraditional not-for-profit transactions nationwide. Leigh joined Assured Guaranty in 2005 as a Vice President in the healthcare group.
Prior to joining Assured Guaranty, Leigh was a founding member of the healthcare underwriting group for CIFG. She also worked as an underwriter in the public finance group of XL Capital Assurance, where she was responsible for not-for-profit transactions. Leigh began her career as an analyst in the Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Municipal Funds Group, where she was the lead analyst for the senior living and high yield hospital sectors.
Leigh is a Board Member of the Northeast Women in Public Finance and was a 2016 Bond Buyer Rising Star. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Boston University and is a CFA charterholder.