Ryan Higgins is a vice president of Municipal Finance for Fidelity Capital Markets, the institutional trading arm of  Fidelity Investments that provides trading products and services to a wide array of clients and Fidelity businesses.  Fidelity Investments is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance,  brokerage, benefits outsourcing, and other financial products and services to institutions, financial intermediaries,  and individuals. 

Every year the Municipal Finance team is involved with hundreds of separate tax-exempt and taxable bonds and  note transactions, totaling billions of dollars. The team seeks to provide market access to our retail investors and  deliver market demand to municipal issuers for public financing initiatives. 

Mr. Higgins joined Fidelity in 2024 to help lead its municipal finance banking efforts across the country. Mr. Higgins  has over 19 years of public finance experience, having served public entities across the country as an investment  banker, municipal advisor and placement agent. He has expertise with senior managed, co-managed and privately  placed transactions spanning every sector of the public finance market, including general infrastructure,  transportation, housing, higher education, healthcare, public power and utilities. In addition, he has executed  derivative transactions as part of comprehensive financing strategies. 

Mr. Higgins has a B.A. degree in business with honors from Saint Anselm College. He currently holds the Financial  Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) series 7, 52, 53, 63 and 79 licenses.

Andy Nakahata is the Executive Director at IBank.

Prior to being appointed by Governor Newsom in 2025 as Chief Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank), Andy Nakahata spent more than 30 years working with state and local governments, public and private universities, public utilities and other entities developing financing solutions to fund infrastructure projects through the tax-exempt and taxable debt markets.

Nakahata is a native of San Francisco and a long-time Bay Area resident. Prior to joining the IBank, he worked at TD Securities as Director and Western Region Head, UBS Financial Services as Managing Director and Regional Head of Public Finance, West Region, and National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation as Managing Director and Head of West Region New Business building each respective firm’s presence and business in the western region. Nakahata also served as a public finance investment banker with Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Nakahata has spent his career finding creative solutions to fund public infrastructure projects at the lowest cost of funds. He plans to leverage his experience as a banker and financial services executive to further strengthen the IBank’s mission to provide financial assistance to support infrastructure and economic development.

A testament to his connection with the California public finance industry, Nakahata has served five times as Co-Chair of the California Bond Buyer Conference, the largest public finance conference in the country.

Nakahata is an active community member, currently serving as Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of San Francisco University High School and is a current and founding member of the Board of Directors of Asian Americans in Public Finance. He previously served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Marin Country Day School, Secretary of the Board of Directors of Kokoro Assisted Living, Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Enterprise for Youth and member of the Board of Directors of the Asian Pacific Youth Leadership Project.