Stephanie Wiggins is the CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation  Authority (Metro), the lead transportation planning, programming, financing, and  construction agency for LA County and the US’s second busiest transit agency. As CEO,  Wiggins leads an agency with 12,000 employees, an annual budget of $9 billion and a $26 billion capital program. Ms. Wiggins is the first woman – and first African American woman – to lead Metro.  

At Metro, Wiggins has led massive investments to improve the transit customer experience, expanding safety programs, fare discounts, and implementing the nation’s largest transit  ambassador program. She has also overseen a massive expansion of the Metro system,  connecting it to new destinations in south LA and downtown LA. These collective efforts  resulted in the increase of customer satisfaction rates from under 60% in 2022 to nearly  90% in 2025. Ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Wiggins is also leading  the delivery of dozens of projects that will leave a legacy of permanent transit improvements  for LA County’s residents. 

Before joining Metro as CEO in June 2021, Wiggins served as the CEO of Metrolink and the  Deputy CEO of Metro, where she assisted the CEO in achieving strategic public  transportation objectives, including the passage of a permanent half-cent sales tax to  support transit. 

Wiggins is a graduate of Whittier College and holds an MBA from the University of Southern  California Marshall School of Business.

Ronda Chu is the Chief Financial Officer at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), operated by the Airport Commission of the City and County of San Francisco. She leads the airport’s financial operations, with a focus on long-term stability and growth. Her leadership spans strategic planning, budgeting, financial systems & reporting, financial planning & analysis, revenue management, capital financing, procurement and risk management. She guides development of SFO’s $1.8 billion operating budget, oversees financing of a $12.5 billion capital improvement plan, and manages a $10.5 billion debt portfolio—key elements that ensure the airport’s financial strength and resilience.

She brings over 25 years of experience in municipal finance, with a background that spans both advisory and issuer roles. Before joining SFO in 2008, she worked as a management consultant, delivering financial and business planning services to airports and municipalities across the U.S and internationally.

Ms. Chu holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Science in Financial Economics from the University of London. Committed to professional and community service, Ms. Chu previously served as a Board Member for a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. She is currently a member of the Airport Council International-North America (ACI-NA) Finance Committee and serves as Chair of the Strategic Planning and Performance Management Working Group.

Rob Larkins, Managing Director and Head of California Public Finance, is based in Loop Capital Markets’ San Francisco office and has led the Firm’s California efforts since 2020. Rob is a 40-year veteran of the public finance sector, highly regarded for his structuring creativity, credit expertise and thorough/timely document review. A fourth-generation Californian and life-long California resident, Rob has vast California experience, including the State of California and related entities, counties, cities, school districts, special districts, and successor redevelopment agencies. He has focused on California counties since the late 1980s, and he has completed countless bond financings for the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Tulare, Yolo and Yuba. His California City experience includes Beverly Hills, Fresno, the Town of Hillsborough, Modesto, Oxnard, Novato, Pacifica, Pasadena, Redwood City, Richmond, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, South San Francisco, San Leandro, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, San Rafael, Santa Rosa and Yuba City. Rob is also well versed in the pension space, having completed over $17.9 billion in pension obligation bonds (more than anyone else in the business), and has considerable experience with water, sewer, and solid waste credits, as well as RANs, TRANs, and other cash- management vehicles. Since joining Loop in 2020, Rob has led the Firm’s K-14 GO Bond practice, senior managing 18 transactions totaling $1.6 billion. Rob graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 1984, where he earned a B.S. in Political Science. Rob holds Series 7, 52, 53, and 63 licenses.

Nathaniel Johnson is a Director at Bank of America, where he works with public sector clients across the country to develop tailored financing solutions for a range of capital needs. He joined Bank of America in 2021 after 15 years at J.P. Morgan and brings 25 years of experience in the financial industry. Over the course of his career, Nathaniel has supported more than $40 billion in debt financings. He also leads Bank of America’s efforts in Mitigation and Disaster Recovery, working with state and local governments on resiliency and mitigation strategies related to climate-driven risks.

Cynthia Mendonza is IBank’s Chief Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining IBank, she was the Deputy Director – Fiscal Services at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Before this time, she served as Chief of the Office of Legislations at CDCR and several positions at the California Prison Industry Authority – Chief, Marketing and Regulatory Compliance and Chief, Budgeting and Financial Planning. Prior to and interspersed between these positions, Cynthia also served as a Principal Program Budget Analyst, Staff Finance Budget Analyst and Finance Budget Analyst at the California Department of Finance.

Cynthia has been with the State of California for nearly 14 years. Throughout that time, she has had the opportunity to grow across roles that draw on her background in both Applied Behavior Analysis and business. Public service has continually challenged her to think critically, adapt, and collaborate — and she is grateful for the many colleagues and mentors who have shaped her experience along the way.

Cynthia has a BA in Psychology, Master’s in Psychology (Applied Behavior Analysis) and a Master’s in Business Administration.

Alexander Meeks is a director at Milken Institute Finance. Meeks focuses on helping communities decarbonize buildings, deploy renewable energy infrastructure, and accelerate resilient disaster recovery and adaptation to extreme weather events. In doing so, he leverages the Institute’s Community Infrastructure Center, a platform connecting over 3,000 organizations to data, resources, and capital to advance critical infrastructure projects across the country. Under the banner of the Community Infrastructure Center, he oversees Deal Rooms that have featured nearly $2B in climate and housing projects seeking mission-driven investment. He is also central to the Institute’s response to the Eaton and Palisades fires of January 2025, leading convenings and research on ways to fund and finance disaster recovery and long-term resilience in the wake of the wildfires.
 
Prior to his work at the Milken Institute, Meeks served as a Principal at HR&A Advisors, a consulting firm that specializes in economic development, real estate, and urban planning and policy advisory services. At HR&A, he advised on environmentally sustainable economic and community development planning; building weatherization and decarbonization policy and program design; and hazard mitigation costs, benefits, and funding strategies in cities across the United States and internationally. Prior to HR&A, Meeks managed federally funded housing, small business, and infrastructure recovery and resilience projects in New York State after Superstorm Sandy.
 
Meeks holds a master’s in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a sustainability certificate from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute’s New York Chapter.

Oppenheimer is a global financial institution offering Wealth Management, Capital Markets, and Investment Banking solutions. We have been providing customized strategies centered on the goals of our clients since 1881 — using our extensive experience, resources, research, and knowledge to help advance society, improve our communities, and leave the world a better place.

Academy Securities is our nation’s first Post-9/11 veteran-owned and operated investment bank with strengths in capital markets, asset management, public finance, geopolitical intel, fixed income and equity trading. We operate at the intersection of geopolitical risk and finance.

Dr. Kalotay is an authority on quantitative analysis of municipal bonds, including risk management, debt management, and tax management. He has been a prolific contributor to both academic and practitioner literature. His book, “The Interest Rate Risk Management of Municipal Bonds’, was published in 2021, and his ‘tax-neutral OAS’ method of valuing municipal bonds received a patent in 2024.

In 2021 he sold his firm Andrew Kalotay Associates, which he founded in 1990, to the Intercontinental Exchange. His firm provided bond analytics to some of the most sophisticated market participants. Previously, he was with Salomon Brothers and Dillon Read. Prior to Wall Street, he was at Bell Telephone Laboratories and AT&T.

On the academic side, he directed the first graduate Financial Engineering program in the U.S. at Polytechnic University (now part of New York University), from 1994 to 1997. Previously he taught at Wharton, Columbia, and Fordham University.

He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Queen’s University and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, all in mathematics. He was inducted into the Fixed Income Analyst Society’s “Hall of Fame” in 1997.

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