In 2013 the Treasury Department created the Office of State and Local Finance to, among other things, provide analysis and policy on public pensions and other postemployment benefits. The unit’s director, Kent Hiteshew, who was also given the job of developing municipal markets and infrastructure finance, and investigating state and local budget practices and fiscal conditions, tapped A. Melissa Moye, 52, to tackle pension policy. Moye joined the office in April 2014 after a four-year stint as chief investment officer of the $45 billion Maryland State Retirement and Pension System. “The energy level is high,” says Moye, pointing out that more than 25 million Americans depend on public pensions. The office will be “quite entrepreneurial.” Her first order of business is to gather data on the health of public pensions from across the 50 states. Before her term as CIO, Moye worked as an adviser to Maryland State Treasurer Nancy Kopp on financial policy issues and also served as a retirement system trustee and an investment committee member. “One of the key lessons for me was that pensions must be consistently funded,” she says. Earlier, Moye, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Notre Dame, worked as chief economist in trust and investment services and director of investments at Amalgamated Bank.
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A. Melissa Moye
Senior Policy Adviser
U.S. Department of the Treasury
PNR
The 2014 Pension 40