Heather Murren

Heather Murren is a private investor and former Wall Street securities analyst. She served as a Congressional appointed commissioner on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in 2009 and the President's Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity in 2016.

Career

Murren began her career on Wall Street at Salomon Brothers in 1988 as a securities analyst and ultimately retired in 2002 as a managing director, Global Securities Research and Economics, of Merrill Lynch.

Murren was recognized in all major financial industry surveys for the quality of her research product and timeliness and accuracy of her market calls. She was chosen six consecutive years as a member Institutional Investor’s All-American Research Team. Her multi-year inclusion in the Greenwich survey and repeated designations by the Wall Street Journal as an all-star analyst underscore her other notable achievements in the economic and financial services community. She was profiled in FORTUNE magazine as one of the Wall Street’s all-star analysts while at Merrill Lynch.^[1]

Post-Career

After retiring from Wall Street, in 2002, and seeing the extreme need for quality medical care in the State of Nevada, she co-founded the first non-profit cancer research and treatment center in Las Vegas, the Nevada Cancer Institute (NVCI) where she served as Chairman and CEO until 2009. The 140,00 square foot flagship facility was constructed between 2002 and 2005 when it opened to patients and researchers with fully integrated wet and dry laboratories, imaging, radiation and clinical oncology practices and patient support services. The NVCI carried out the first ever first-in-man clinical trials in the state of Nevada^[2] as well as seminal clinical trials making previously unavailable early-stage clinical trial therapies available to the over 15,000 patients served.^[3] The research center-clinic flagship facility was acquired by the University of California San Diego Health Systems in January 2012 ^[4] and subsequently the NVCI Foundation was then merged into Roseman University in December 2013 after reorganization.^[5]

Murren was appointed in 2009 by Congress to serve on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), a 10-member Federal commission established to examine the domestic and global cause of the financial crisis. The commission, to which subpoena powers were granted, examined and held hearings on more than 20 specific areas of inquiry, including the role of fraud and abuse in the financial sector; state and federal regulatory enforcement; tax treatment of financial products; lending practices and securitization; and corporate governance and executive compensation. The commission reported its finding in January 2011.^[6] The published book “The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report” was listed on the New York Times bestseller list and was critically acclaimed.^[7]

On April 13, 2016 President Obama announced Murren’s appointment to the President's Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.^[8]

On January 21, 2017 she became a special correspondent for The Nevada Independent.^[9] She currently writes about cybersecurity, and has since written on the state of cybersecurity in Nevada.^[10]

On May 3rd, 2017, Fidelity National Financial, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors adopted a resolution increasing the size of the Company's Board of Directors to thirteen and elected Murren to serve on its Board of Directors. "We are excited to welcome Heather Murren as a member of our board," said Chairman William P. Foley, II. "Heather has extensive financial markets experience and has been appointed to investigate some of the most pressing issues in our country by Congress and the President. She brings a wealth of talent, leadership and knowledge of Wall Street, the financial crisis and cybersecurity that will serve our board and company well.”^[11]

On May 11, 2017 Murren along with her husband Jim Murren^[12] were presented with the Distinguished Woodrow Wilson Award For Corporate Citizenship.^[13] The award is given to those who, by their example and business practices, have demonstrated a profound concern for the common good beyond the bottom line, acting as a force for positive change.^[14]

She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the JHU Applied Physics Laboratory. The Applied Physics Laboratory is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center - providing research and development in the areas of cybersecurity, undersea and air defense, space, national security analysis, special operations and strategic defense to our nation. She has previously held a gubernatorial appointment to the Nevada Academy of Health and the Board of Economic Development for the state of Nevada.

Murren is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and a Chartered Financial Analyst. Fluent in Spanish and French, she has served as a translator and medical assistant for Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada, a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare to the community regardless of the patient’s ability to pay, she is President of the Murren Family Foundation which focuses grants on education, security, healthcare and military veterans.

References