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BIOGRAPHIES
President:
HENRY SHILLING is a Senior Vice President with Moody’s Investors Service.   Working at Moody’s since 1992, Henry recently assumed a new role with a focus on environmental, social as well as governance risks and their impact on credit ratings, research and analysis. Previously he focused on research, analysis and ratings of money market and bond mutual funds, various other pooled investment vehicles, pension funds, debt like instruments issued by closed-end funds as well as asset (fund) management companies.  Earlier in his career he was a vice president with a firm specializing in tracking and evaluating the performance of mutual funds and an officer in the employee-benefit trust and asset management divisions of several large banks.  Henry is the author of The International Guide to Securities Market Indices which was published in 1996 by International Publishing Corp., Chicago, Illinois.  Also, he is a recent contributor to Money Market Funds in the EU and the US, published in 2014 by Oxford University Press.  Henry earned a B.A. in economics from Lehman College, City University of New York in 1971.   

Vice President:
ADAM B. COHEN, Esq., Founder and Managing Member, Covenant Review, graduated from the University of Florida in 1993 and from Georgetown University Law School cum laude in 1997, having been elected to the Georgetown Law Journal. Adam founded Covenant Review in 2005 as the world's first boutique research firm focused on corporate bond covenants in order to provide institutional investors with perspectives on their rights as bondholders as seen through the eyes of experienced practicing lawyers.  Covenant Review has since grown to own Capital Structure, Europe’s leading publishes of news on the sub-investment grade credit universe.  Adam was one of seven contributors to the American Bar Association's Model Negotiated Covenants Project and is on the Credit Roundtable where he was instrumental in the development of the "White Paper" for model covenants for the investment grade universe. He also co-authored two chapters in Frank Fabozzi’s Handbook of Fixed Income Securities, Eighth Edition. He is widely considered to be the leading commentator on corporate bond covenants. Prior to founding Covenant Review, he was a corporate finance attorney with Latham & Watkins and an investment banker with Lehman Brothers.

Secretary:
LARRY WHITE is a Managing Director of DBRS, a Carlyle and Warburg Pincus company, since 2006.  His responsibilities include managing and growing relationships with investors and other constituents of DBRS, such as issuers and bankers.  He is also responsible for business development related to financial institutions and sovereigns in the U.S. and Europe.  Before joining DBRS, Larry spent more than 8 years at Moody’s Investors Service, where he was responsible for product development related to global financial institutions and Latin America.  In addition, he has held positions at several banks including The Bank of New York and First Horizon.  Larry received his MBA from Columbia University and his BS in Finance/Economics from Christian Brothers University.

Treasurer:
MELODY VOGELMANN, CFA is currently a credit research consultant. She also spent 9 months working for FIASI on a range of strategic projects before joining the Board in 2011.  Prior to her work at FIASI she spent nearly a decade as a sell side researcher.  Most recently, she was at Barclays Capital, where she worked as an investment grade credit strategist.  She began her career as a fundamental corporate bond analyst, spending 5 years at Lehman Brothers.  Melody received an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the Stern School of Business at NYU and an S.B. in Economics from M.I.T.  Outside of work she is active in several family-focused community organizations.

Members-at-Large:
STEVE BERKLEY is a Wall Street professional with over 30 years of experience and joined Bloomberg in 2014 to lead their index effort.  Most of his career was spent at Lehman Brothers where he was the Global Head of the Index Business.  During his 19 years at Lehman, Steve led the effort to grow market share resulting in a franchise that is widely accepted as the global leader in fixed income benchmarks.  Berkley participated in the initial launch of the U.S. Aggregate Index, led the effort to create the Global and Euro-Aggregate Indices, established a program to monetize the index through various licensing agreements, improved production and distribution processes, conducted multiple Index Advisory Councils with key clients on three continents, worked with internal compliance to communicate index developments with the media and marketed various software packages distributed by the index team.

Berkley left Lehman and joined BlackRock in 2005 where he established and headed the Relationship Management function for BlackRock Solutions.  During this time the number of Aladdin clients nearly quadrupled.  Steve was also responsible for the BlackRock Solutions Center and the Investment Accounting business.  He was named COO for the Aladdin business in 2010.

Steve holds a BS in Computer Science and an MBA, both from Hofstra University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.  Steve served as the President of FIASI from 2005—2006.

CHRISTOPHER BUCK is Head of Credit Research at Finisterre Capital and is based in the UK. Finisterre seeks global investment opportunities across the credit spectrum from distressed to investment grade. Finisterre is an Emerging Market's focused, absolute return, long/short hedge fund with over 3.5bn in assets under management. Before joining Finisterre in September 2014 Christopher was the Head of Latin America Corporate Credit Research at Barclays from 2012 where he managed a team covering LatAm corporate bonds.  Chris also worked in a variety of roles within Emerging Markets corporate credit research at Barclays from 2006.  He was previously a research assistant at The Rand Corporation from 2003 to 2005. Chris received an MBA from Stern School of Business at New York University in 2007 and graduated with a BA in International Studies from Colby College in 2000.

RALPH DECESARE, CFA, CAIA, is Vice-President and Director and head of research for TD Asset Management USA, headquartered in New York. As part of the Toronto-based TD Bank Financial Group, one of the largest banks in North America, TDAM manages over US$250 billion in assets under management on behalf of pension, insurance, endowment/foundation and corporate clients, as well as for high-net worth individuals and retail mutual funds. Prior to joining TDAM, Ralph was a director of fixed income research at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers from 1990 to 2006. Responsibilities included leading a team of fixed income analysts that helped manage over $150 billion in fixed income assets including mutual funds, money market and institutional accounts. Ralph also has had two separate terms at Standard & Poor’s Corp. as a debt ratings analyst, covering multiple industries including electric utilities, natural gas and financial institutions. Ralph earned an MBA in finance from Fordham University, and a B.S. in finance from the University of Arizona. Ralph served as the President of FIASI from 2012 to 2014.  Ralph is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. He is a CFA charterholder and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst. He serves on the Board of Gibney Dance, a non-profit in New York City.

MARTHA DUMONT has extensive financial services management and leadership experience in both the corporate and not-for-profit arenas. Most recently, she was a founding investor, Board Member and Global Head of Research and Sales at CreditSights, a leading independent research provider based in New York. Earlier in her career, Martha was the Director of Global Fixed Income Research at Lehman Brothers where she oversaw all research and index products until 1994. While at Lehman Martha was responsible for building the Fixed Income team that captured the number one position in the Institutional Investor rankings when the poll was established. Between Lehman Brothers and CreditSights, Martha was a private investor, based in Maine, where she served on the Boards and Investment Committees of several charitable organizations. Martha graduated from Mount Holyoke College with an AB in Mathematics and Economics in 1979 and currently serves on the Board of the Maine Community Foundation.

EILEEN A. FAHEY, CFA is the Chief Credit Officer at Fitch Ratings. She and her team of regional and group credit officers are responsible for ratings oversight, quality assurance, credit market commentary and research globally. Previously, Ms. Fahey was the Regional Credit Officer for the Americas at Fitch Ratings playing an important role in helping to evolve Fitch's credit policy in the wake of the global financial crisis. Ms. Fahey has held a variety of roles during her tenure at Fitch, including group credit officer for the Insurance, Fund and Asset Managers, and REITs groups. In these roles she oversaw the development and application of credit rating criteria and participated in ratings committees. Ms. Fahey joined Fitch Ratings in 1998 as a credit analyst in the financial institutions group, eventually leading the analytical teams on investment and money center banks, and asset management firms including traditional mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers and derivatives product companies.

Prior to joining Fitch, Ms. Fahey was a National Bank Examiner with the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). At the OCC, she was a member of the multinational banking group and examined capital markets and trading operations of U.S. money center banks. Ms. Fahey received a BA in business and economics from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, and has been a chartered financial analyst (CFA) charterholder since 1994.

MARK HOCHBERG is a Director in BlackRock's Investment Servicesdepartment and has worked at BlackRock, Inc. in a variety of management, information technology and project management roles.  Prior to joining BlackRock, Mark managed application development and system engineering teams at Credit Suisse First Boston.  Mark received an S.B. in Computer Science and Engineering from M.I.T.  Outside of work, Mark contributes time and effort to a number of organizations, primarily those focusing on the promotion of the sciences and performing arts, the ongoing health and prosperity of New York and Finance.

MARK HOWARD, CFA, Immediate Past-President of FIASI, is the Head of US Credit Strategy at BNP Paribas. He directs a team that provides strategic and portfolio advice related to the US Investment Grade, High Yield and Structured Credit markets. Previously, Mark spent 5 years at Barclays Capital, where he was a Managing Director and held the roles of Co-Head of Global Research and Head of Credit Analysis.  At Barclays, he was active in a range of firm-wide initiatives as a member of the firm's Management, Recruitment and Diversity committees.  Prior to joining Barclays in April 2004, Mr. Howard was at Lehman Brothers for 18 years, where he was a Managing Director and Global Credit Strategist.  In that capacity, he was responsible for the firm’s high grade, high yield, emerging market and credit derivative strategy teams.  As an active researcher, Mr. Howard has been recognized as a fixed income ‘All American’ by Institutional Investor magazine 11 times, including first place rankings in 7 of those years.  Mr. Howard received his MBA in Finance from New York University and his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Colby College.  He is an Overseer of the Board of Trustees of Colby College and serves on the Board as well as the Finance and Investment Committees of Village Community School in New York City.  He also serves on the Board and Finance Committee for University College London’s Friends and Alumni Association.  He was president of FIASI in the fiscal years 2011—2012 and 2014—2015.

DAVID W. MUNVES, CFA is a Managing Director at Moody’s Analytics, and is in charge of the Capital Markets Research Group. The group manages and researches applications of the firm’s suite of markets-based signals, principally EDF (Expected Default Frequency) metrics for public firms and the Market Implied Ratings service, as well as the Capital Markets Economics group.  David joined Moody’s in December 2004. Prior to joining Moody’s David worked for nine years in Lehman Brothers’ Fixed Income Research Group in London.  At Lehman he headed the European Credit Strategy Group for seven years before taking responsibility for the European Fixed Income Index Group.  He began his sell side career at Kidder Peabody and PaineWebber. David also worked for 10 years at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Group, where he held a variety of analytical and managerial positions in New York, Stockholm, and London. Prior to joining S&P David was a lending officer with Swiss Bank Corporation in New York. A Chartered Financial Analyst, David holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College and a Master’s Degree in International and Public Affairs from Columbia University.  He was president of FIASI from 2009 to 2011.

PETER PETAS is the President and COO of CreditSights, was an original investor and co-founder of CreditSights. Peter has been responsible for a range of activities within CreditSights including the restructuring and expansion of the company's global sales force and direct oversight of the globally integrated research teams. Peter draws heavily on the breadth of perspective that he developed during his 20+ years in the discipline of corporate, sovereign, and emerging markets research. During that time, the quality of his research work in the face of rapidly changing market dynamics and increasingly frequent bouts of sovereign and regional credit stress earned him broad professional recognition. Peter has been recognized in various investor polls in Emerging Markets Strategy, Sovereign Debt Research, Canadian Debt, and Asian Debt Research. Among Peter's achievements, Institutional Investor ranked him as the #1 Sovereign Debt analysts for five consecutive years.

Prior to founding CreditSights Inc. in 2000, Peter was a Managing Director and Head of Global Emerging Market Debt Strategy at Deutsche Bank (1997 to 2000), where he was responsible for a group of analysts located in London, New York, and Singapore and was the principal strategist for the Global Markets Emerging Markets business. From 1988 to 1997, Peter was the Senior Sovereign Debt Strategist and Yankee Bond analyst at Lehman Brothers. Peter graduated from Princeton University with an AB in History in 1988.

ROBERT SLOWKO is a Business Development Manager at MSCI, responsible for the strategy, marketing and sales of the entire suite of company’s ESG products. Robert joined MSCI through the acquisition of GMI Ratings in August 2014. Prior to MSCI Robert worked as a Business Development Manager for the Hedge Funds group of Thomson Reuters and was involved in multiple projects including launching an Emerging Markets group or developing company’s North American Hedge Funds product, marketing and sales strategy. He held a number of positions in the financial industry including Emerging Markets research and trading at Galleon International, senior roles in global funds custody at RBC Dexia Investor Services, foreign exchange trading or economic research. Robert has been actively involved in FIASI since 2010. He participated in and was responsible for a number of projects critical to the organization. Robert holds a Master’s of Arts degree in Economics from Cracow University of Economics and a Master’s of Business Administration in Finance from Fordham University.

DIANE VAZZA is the Head of Global Fixed Income Research at Standard & Poor’s.  Her analyses, forecasts and research on global credit markets have earned her an international audience.

Diane has 30 years’ experience working in the capital markets, including rating agency, regulatory, trading, credit and banking experience at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Citibank and Chase Manhattan Bank. Credit Magazine named Diane one of the top 50 women across the globe in credit and fixed income. She has traveled to over 100 countries. Diane holds a BA degree in Classics (Latin and Ancient Greek) and French from Holy Cross College. She was President of FIASI in 2004—2005 and Chaired FIASI’s Inaugural Women in Fixed Income Conference in 2015.

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