Lois Scott

Lois Scott, President, Epoch Advisors, is a senior finance executive, entrepreneur and civic leader.� She serves on the board of MBIA Inc. (MBI - NYSE) where she is a member of the Audit Committee and the board of other privately held financial services companies.Lois’ functional experience includes financial and business strategy, driving revenue growth and profitability, investor relations, financial turnarounds, and asset and liability management in government and regulated industries.From 2011-2015, Lois served as the Chief Financial Officer for the City of Chicago, the first woman to ever serve in that capacity. With over 30 years of finance experience, Mayor Rahm Emanuel entrusted Lois and the City’s finance team with an annual budget of $7.5 billion and assets of $32 billion.� As CFO, she had financial oversight of essential City services as well as O’Hare Airport, Midway Airport, the City’s public-private infrastructure partnership contracts, and water and wastewater systems serving more than 5 million people. �Lois brought corporate-style investor relations and enhanced disclosure to municipal government, launching the City’s annual investor conference in 2011.� She served as trustee for public pension funds with assets of $5 billion and a $3 billion deferred compensation plan.� Lois oversaw bank relationships with the largest banks in the world, worked with 67 investment banking firms, was the most requested speaker of the Emanuel administration, including keynoting conferences in China, D.C. and serving as special advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative on infrastructure and finance.Lois has been an entrepreneur and builder throughout her career. �In 2011, Lois co-founded and chaired the Municipal CFO Forum with the Harris School of the University of Chicago.� The Forum convenes the CFO’s of America’s 30 largest cities for discussion at conferences twice each year and provides a powerful springboard for introduction of new ideas and adoption of best practices.From 2002-2011, Lois was CEO of a financial advisory firm with offices in New York, Chicago, Houston, Newark, Columbus and Anchorage that served large corporate and governmental clients.� The firm was acquired by PFM in 2011. Prior to that, she served as President and Vice Chair of a technology company that provided a family of services to schools.� In that role, she recruited the management team, led its efforts to raise $23 million in equity and was extensively involved in sales and marketing in 26 states.� The firm’s technology was sold to a publicly traded company in 2001.� Lois also helped launch Homeboyz Interactive in Chicago, a pioneering social enterprise that worked with gang-influenced youth, translating their street experiences into career success in the technology industry.�Lois is well known as one of the founders of Women in Public Finance, a professional organization started in 1995 that now serves 1,500 people in the finance industry through 12 chapters across the country.� She was also the driving force behind creation of the “Women of the Year” event honoring the accomplishments of women in the public finance field.Lois started her career at First Chicago (now JPMorgan), where she was responsible for governmental, health care and higher education clients in an 8-state region including California.� She quickly rose in the investment banking field to become one of the youngest Principals at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, (now Credit Suisse).� She helped relaunch Bank of America’s public finance efforts in the Midwest, gaining national attention and awards for her work.In 1997, Lois was selected to serve as one of 15 White House Fellows and tasked with advising President Clinton’s administration on the financial crisis in Southeast Asia. She later chaired the Management Committee of the Export-Import Bank, responsible for management issues affecting the 450-person, $800 million organization.�Throughout her career, Lois has helped those in need and been active in her community. She has served on the board and/or been involved with dozens of organizations, including Children’s Memorial Hospital (policy committee), Chicago Development Fund, Free the Children/We Day, IFF, The Chicago Network, Leadership Greater Chicago, White House Fellows Association, National Louis University, Better Government Association, North Avenue Day Nursery, City Lit Theater Company and The Bond Club of Chicago, among others.Lois’ work has been recognized by many, including Crain’s Chicago Business “40 under 40”, “Women in Black” for top women in technology, Today’s Chicago Woman’s list of “Most Influential Women in Chicago” and as a leading entrepreneur in National Journal, Forbes Small Business and BusinessWeek websites.� In 2011, she won lifetime achievement honors from the public finance industry and won the 2015 “Freda Johnson” award for trailblazing women in finance.Lois grew up in upstate New York in a family of four daughters that encouraged leadership, education and community service.�� At 17, she enrolled at Cornell University to study Labor Economics and completed her MBA in Finance from Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Business at the age of 22.�Today, Lois divides her time between Epoch Advisors, corporate boards and leadership on key civic initiatives, philanthropic causes and social investments.�