Head of Public Finance
Oppenheimer
Beth joined Oppenheimer in 2024 as Head of Public Finance. With over 30 years of industry expertise, she has completed $40 billion in transactions throughout her career. Ms. Coolidge most recently led UBS’s Midwest Public Finance unit for over six years.
She has served as lead banker on numerous hallmark financings including: the Chicago Housing Authority’s Capital Program Revenue Bonds, backed solely by the federal grants that the Authority received from HUD, which won the inaugural Deal of the Year award by The Bond Buyer in 2002, The Indianapolis Local Public Improvement Bond Bank’s Community Justice Center financing which won Midwest Deal of the Year in 2019; and, most recently, Ms. Coolidge was awarded the 2023 Bond Buyer Deal of the Year Award for her work on the City of Chicago’s Sales Tax Securitization transaction, inclusive of the City’s inaugural social bond issuance that achieved the highest pricing differential on an ESG financing to date.
In 2017, Beth was recognized as a Trailblazing Women in Public Finance by The Bond Buyer and continues to pave the way for women of our industry.
Ms. Coolidge is a lifelong resident of the City of Chicago and serves on numerous charitable boards in Chicago. She has served on the board of the Chicago Summer Business Institute since its inception and has served as Co-Chair for over 10 years. Ms. Coolidge also serves on the board of The Civic Federation of Chicago where she sits on the Executive Committee. She serves on the Board of Regents of St. Ignatius College Prep, and the boards of Catholic Charities, The Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago and the board of Maryville Academy. Ms. Coolidge is also a member of The Economic Club of Chicago where she serves on the membership committee. In October 2018, Ms. Coolidge was appointed to the board of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago City Council. For the past 10 years, she has served as an instructor for the Municipal Bond Club of Chicago Bond School.
Ms. Coolidge received her B.A. in English from the University of Illinois‐Urbana on a General Assembly Scholarship. Ms. Coolidge holds FINRA Series 7, 24, 52, 53, 63, 65, and 79 licenses.
With increasing reports of cyber activity in the public finance industry as the war in the Middle East continues, our panel of experts will discuss the severity of what the market faces, what kinds of best practices for guarding against them exist – or should exist – and why all players in the industry need to coalesce around common goals to be more efficient in battling the threats.
From what to disclose and how to insure against threats and who pays the costs associated with them, all parties – issuers, underwriters, advisors, investors and trustees – need to better prepare for the expected onslaught of threats. It also signals the industry, and governments, need to become more efficient overall with managing the threats as part of day-to-day management.