Nathaniel “Nat” Singer is a senior director with PFM Financial Advisors LLC and PFM Swap Advisors LLC, advising on both taxable and tax-exempt bond and derivative transactions.
A former Chair of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and member of SIFMA’s new product committee, Mr. Singer brings nearly four decades of experience to PFM. Throughout his career, Mr. Singer has been lead on some of the largest and most complex bond and swap transactions across a number of sectors and geographies.
Mr. Singer is one of the most respected voices in the municipal industry and is frequently sought out as an expert. After spending 21 years at Bear Stearns trading and underwriting municipal bonds as well as running their derivative department, he joined Swap Financial Group as a partner and Senior Managing Director in 2008. In these roles, he was responsible for the development of state-of-the-art financial products to help municipal issuers lower debt service costs and hedge interest rate risk.
Mr. Singer is a frequent speaker on topics relating to both the municipal cash market as well as the derivatives market and has authored numerous papers focusing on financing and trading opportunities in the municipal market. He received a B.S.E. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University, an international business certificate from the University of Copenhagen and attended the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
David Leifer, Senior Managing Director of KNN Public Finance, has over 29 years of experience as a Financial Advisor and 5 years of experience as an attorney. Mr. Leifer has worked continuously at KNN since 2001 and has served in the role of Senior Managing Director since 2009. Mr. Leifer’s practice specialties include general government, health care, higher educations, pensions, transportation, and utilities. He serves as lead advisor to numerous counties, cities, special districts, and State agencies, primarily in California. He is the lead advisor to the California State Treasurer’s office for the issuance of Lease Revenue Bonds by the State of California Public Works Board and to the State’s Conduit Issuance Authorities, the California Health Facilities Finance Authority (CHFFA), and the California Educational Facilities Authority (CEFA). Mr. Leifer has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Nick Peters is Senior Director of Municipal Bonds at Intercontinental Exchange, where he leads product strategy for ICE’s municipal data and analytics franchise, including Continuous Evaluated Pricing (CEP), the ICE AAA Municipal Yield Curve, the broader municipal yield curve suite, Fair Value Information Service, Size-Adjusted Pricing, and Enhanced Transparency. He owns the muni product roadmap end-to-end — from quantitative modeling and technical design through commercial strategy — and manages a team of product managers building the next generation of evaluated pricing and market-transparency tools for the municipal market.
Most recently, Nick has been a driving force behind ICE’s rollout of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, one of the first production MCP integrations in institutional fixed income. The MCP server brings ICE’s evaluated pricing, benchmark curves, Enhanced Transparency, and Independent Price Verification narratives directly into leading AI assistants, letting portfolio managers, traders, and pricing teams query ICE content in natural language from inside their existing workflows. Nick has helped shape the muni content roadmap for the connector and the client engagement strategy for bringing it to market.
Nick brings more than 15 years of fixed income experience across evaluated pricing, trading analytics, and structured credit. Prior to leading the muni franchise, he was Director of Trading Analytics at ICE, where he built the firm’s BestEx and transaction cost analysis (TCA) platform spanning corporates, munis, sovereigns, and MBS — one of the first cross-asset TCA tools designed for ETF, algorithmic, and auto-execution desks. Earlier, as Manager of MBS Pricing, he helped launch the industry’s first continuous fixed income pool pricing model, covering more than one million securities.
Before joining ICE, Nick held various roles at UBS Investment Bank and Fannie Mae. He holds a BA in Business Administration from Drexel University and is a CFA charterholder.
Greg Dawley is a Managing Director in the Los Angeles office of RBC Capital Markets.
Mr. Dawley has served over 33 years in the municipal finance and governmental industries. He focuses on a wide range of issuers throughout the Western Region, including those in the general government, utilities, public power, transportation, higher education and K-14 sectors. In addition, he works with a number of national public power issuers.
Before his career in public finance, Mr. Dawley served as Assistant Chief of Staff to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
He is active in his community, having recently served on the Advisory Board for the California Hope, Opportunity, Perseverance, and Empowerment (HOPE) for Children Trust Account Program and the Advisory Board for the Taubman Center at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government.
Mr. Dawley graduated with an M.P.P. from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.
Rob Hillman is a Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank and a member of its Quantitative Solutions Group in the Firm’s Boston office. In this role he is responsible for managing both relationships with municipal issuers across sectors and regions as well as the firm’s municipal tender efforts. Prior to joining SWS, he led the Surface Transportation Finance Group at Morgan Stanley before helping to establish its Municipal Capital Markets team in 2023. Across his 25+ years in the municipal finance industry he has senior managed over $50 billion of issuance, including the creation of and inaugural financings for many marquee borrowing programs.
Mr. Hillman holds an MS in Mathematics from New York University and a BA from Brandeis University. In addition to his work with municipal clients, he is a board member of a large non-profit focused on international development.
Chris works as a Director in the Public Finance Group – Eastern Region at Assured Guaranty, focusing on utility and transportation sector transactions in the Americas. Prior to working in the Public Finance Group – Eastern Region, Chris worked as a Director in the Infrastructure Finance Group. In addition to covering a variety of issuers and sectors located in the eastern region of the United States, Chris brings a deeper concentration on the utility and transportation sector both domestically and internationally. Prior to joining Assured Guaranty, Chris worked at U.S. Bank, N.A., managing the Public Utility Group in the Government Banking Division. Prior to U.S. Bank, he was a Senior Director/Manager of Fitch Ratings Public Power Group in the Public Finance Division and worked at MBIA Insurance Corporation as a Managing Director in the Public Finance Division. Having extensive prior experience working in bond insurance, at a rating agency and for a commercial bank, Chris brings a unique set of risk assessment, negotiation and rating skills to the revenue bond and tax-supported credit sectors.
Phil Cox has directed more than one hundred political, corporate, and issue advocacy campaigns in 49 states and 1 territory, including campaigns for Governor, US Senate, and President. Last year, Phil was Senior Adviser to America PAC, one of the largest Trump-aligned super-PACs. Phil served as Executive Director of the Republican Governors Association, the national political committee for the Republic Governors, helping to increase the number of GOP governors from 22 to an historic high-water mark of 31. Following his tenure at RGA, Phil has helped elect Governors in a half dozen states, served as national Co-Chair of the successful effort to pass the USMCA, and on the Board of the Senate Leadership Fund. The Boston Globe called him “a force for the GOP” and The Washington Times “a Republican Kingmaker.”
Jennifer Poersch is a leading policy and political advisor for clients in areas ranging from telecom, transportation, and defense to health and wellness. For more than 16 years, Jennifer has been a key advisor to Members of Democratic Senate Leadership and Committee Chairmen, including Sen. Chuck Schumer. She managed finance operations for two Presidential campaigns and dozens of Senate and gubernatorial races across the nation. This unique political background enables her to frame a wide range of issues into winning strategies before Members of Congress. An experienced policy advocate, Jennifer has developed and led strategies resulting in successful appropriations funding efforts, winning competitive federal grant awards, approval of foreign military sales, securing favorable agency regulatory actions, and enacting federal land transfers. Her previous employment includes serving as a Senior Advisor to Sen. Patty Murray at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and senior political advisory roles to numerous Senators including Jack Reed and Tom Udall.
Giles Nicholson is a Senior Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank where he serves as Head of the Quantitative Solutions Group. He has more than 35 years of investment banking experience across the municipal finance industry and has extensive experience with complex financings, including debt restructurings, tenders, swaps and pooled loan programs. Mr. Nicholson holds a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and Series 7, 24, 50, 53, 63, and 79 licenses.