Heather Murren
Encyclopedia
Heather Murren was the cofounder, chairman and CEO for Nevada Cancer Institute
(NVCI) from its founding until June 2009, and remains a member of its board of directors. On July 15, 2009, United States Senate
Majority Leader
Harry Reid
(D-NV
) appointed Murren to the congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
.
and is a chartered financial analyst.
where she was group head for the Global Consumer Products Equity Research effort. In this position, she coordinated the efforts of Merrill’s 16-member global consumer products team, encompassing analysts in Pacific Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States. As a senior executive at Merrill, she was an active mentor of women at the firm. She has also served previously as a member of the board of directors for Mannkind, a biopharmaceutical company, and Service 1st Bank of Nevada, a community bank in Southern Nevada founded in January, 2007.
Murren was a highly ranked analyst, recognized in all major financial industry surveys for the quality of her written work and timely market calls. She was chosen six consecutive years as a member of 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 underscored her other notable achievements in the economic and financial services community. In addition, while at Merrill Lynch, she was profiled in Fortune magazine as one of Wall Street’s all-star analysts for her independent thinking, sometimes controversial, and often accurate.
and chief executive officer
of NVCI from its founding in 2002 until June 2009, and remains a member of its board of directors. She has served as an unpaid volunteer for the history of NVCI. NVCI is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization and the official cancer
institute of the state of Nevada
as established by the State Legislature in 2003.
In 2002, Murren and other community leaders began an effort to build a comprehensive cancer center, as defined by the National Cancer Institute
, in a young state that previously had nothing of its type. So far this effort has raised more than $200 million to build equipment and staff NVCI, which opened its doors in 2005. To date, the 142000 square feet (13,192.2 m²) research and care center has cared for more than 6,000 patients and helped to reduce the burden of cancer for the nearly 22% of people from Nevada that previously left the state to receive treatment elsewhere. The research and care center at One Breakthrough Way opened on September 23, 2005, on six acres of land donated by The Rouse Company
and The Howard Hughes Corporation
. NVCI has recruited some of the nation's leaders in cancer research to win the fight against cancer
, in a state with some of the highest mortality rates in the nation.
and Sen. Bob Graham
(D-FL
) were Sen. Reid's three appointees to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. This 10 member commission, established to examine the domestic and global causes of the financial crisis will conduct a comprehensive examination of, and hold hearings on, more than 20 specific areas of inquiry related to the financial crisis, including the role of fraud and abuse in the financial sector; state and federal regulatory enforcement; tax treatment of financial products; credit rating agencies; lending practices and securitization; unregulated financial products and practices; and corporate governance and executive compensation.
In the opening FCIC session in September, 2009, "Commissioner Murren urged the FCIC to be 'rigorous, unbiased and fearless' in its work. She took the view that the Commission’s most important responsibility was to produce a complete factual record of the causes of the financial crisis."
The commission reported its findings in January, 2011 . The report, "The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report" was covered extensively in national media. The New York Times wrote, "the Congressional commission’s scathing account of the financial crisis casts regulators in a rather unflattering light, as the sheriff who didn’t stop Wall Street from becoming the Wild West."
The published report was listed on the New York Times bestseller list and received critical acclaim as a provocative read. USA Today
wrote, "The report — the government's first comprehensive review of what caused the crisis — offers a detailed and compellingly written narrative of an epic financial tailspin."
. She has received both Congressional recognition and commendation from the U.S. Senate for her work at Nevada Cancer Institute. In addition, she has received numerous awards for philanthropy including the Larry King
Heart Award for 2004, the Jameson Philanthropic Award from the Nevada Community Foundation, and the Humanitas Award from the Nevada Epicurean Club in 2005. In 2006, she was cited as a "Nevada Healthcare Hero." Nevada Business Journal also named her one of "Nevada's Most Respected CEO's" in August 2007.
Murren was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University and sat on the committees for audits and insurance, academic affairs, and trusteeship, nominations and by-laws. She was also a member of the Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council and founder of the Jochebed Scholarship, which supports an undergraduate student in the School of Arts and Sciences with a demonstrated career interest in improving the health and medical care of underprivileged mothers and children. Fluent in Spanish and French, in the past, she has served as a volunteer translator for the Nevada Health Centers, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare to the community of Nevada regardless of the patient’s ability to pay. She has held a gubernatorial appointment to the Nevada Academy of Health.
, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MGM Mirage
.
Nevada Cancer Institute
Nevada Cancer Institute , founded in 2002, has been the official cancer institute for the state of Nevada since 2003. The NVCI is a non-profit organization, composed of a team of researchers and physicians who aim to advance knowledge about cancer while providing medical services throughout Nevada...
(NVCI) from its founding until June 2009, and remains a member of its board of directors. On July 15, 2009, United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Majority Leader
Party leaders of the United States Senate
The Senate Majority and Minority Leaders are two United States Senators who are elected by the party conferences that hold the majority and the minority respectively. These leaders serve as the chief Senate spokespeople for their parties and manage and schedule the legislative and executive...
Harry Reid
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...
(D-NV
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
) appointed Murren to the congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
The Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the...
.
Education
Murren is a 1988 graduate of the Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
and is a chartered financial analyst.
Career
In April 2002, Murren retired as a managing director, Global Securities Research and Economics, of Merrill LynchMerrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
where she was group head for the Global Consumer Products Equity Research effort. In this position, she coordinated the efforts of Merrill’s 16-member global consumer products team, encompassing analysts in Pacific Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States. As a senior executive at Merrill, she was an active mentor of women at the firm. She has also served previously as a member of the board of directors for Mannkind, a biopharmaceutical company, and Service 1st Bank of Nevada, a community bank in Southern Nevada founded in January, 2007.
Murren was a highly ranked analyst, recognized in all major financial industry surveys for the quality of her written work and timely market calls. She was chosen six consecutive years as a member of 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 underscored her other notable achievements in the economic and financial services community. In addition, while at Merrill Lynch, she was profiled in Fortune magazine as one of Wall Street’s all-star analysts for her independent thinking, sometimes controversial, and often accurate.
Nevada Cancer Institute
Heather Murren is the cofounder and served as the chairman of the boardChairman of the Board
The Chairman of the Board is a seat of office in an organization, especially of corporations.Chairman of the Board may also refer to:*Chairman of the Board , a 1998 film*Chairmen of the Board , a 1970s American soul music group...
and chief executive officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of NVCI from its founding in 2002 until June 2009, and remains a member of its board of directors. She has served as an unpaid volunteer for the history of NVCI. NVCI is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization and the official cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
institute of the state of Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
as established by the State Legislature in 2003.
In 2002, Murren and other community leaders began an effort to build a comprehensive cancer center, as defined by the National Cancer Institute
National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health , which is one of 11 agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI coordinates the U.S...
, in a young state that previously had nothing of its type. So far this effort has raised more than $200 million to build equipment and staff NVCI, which opened its doors in 2005. To date, the 142000 square feet (13,192.2 m²) research and care center has cared for more than 6,000 patients and helped to reduce the burden of cancer for the nearly 22% of people from Nevada that previously left the state to receive treatment elsewhere. The research and care center at One Breakthrough Way opened on September 23, 2005, on six acres of land donated by The Rouse Company
The Rouse Company
The Rouse Company, founded by James W. Rouse in 1939, was a publicly held shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when General Growth Properties Inc...
and The Howard Hughes Corporation
The Howard Hughes Corporation
The Howard Hughes Corporation is a major real estate development and management company based in Dallas, Texas, which was founded by Howard Hughes. Later sold to the Rouse Company, it became a separate company again in 2010, as a spinoff of General Growth Properties .Upon exiting bankruptcy, GGP...
. NVCI has recruited some of the nation's leaders in cancer research to win the fight against cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, in a state with some of the highest mortality rates in the nation.
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Murren, fellow Nevada resident Byron GeorgiouByron Georgiou
Byron Stephen Georgiou is a financial lawyer, and an investor. In 2009, Georgiou was appointed by United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission .-Education:...
and Sen. Bob Graham
Bob Graham
Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham is an American politician. He was the 38th Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from that state from 1987 to 2005...
(D-FL
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
) were Sen. Reid's three appointees to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. This 10 member commission, established to examine the domestic and global causes of the financial crisis will conduct a comprehensive examination of, and hold hearings on, more than 20 specific areas of inquiry related to the financial crisis, including the role of fraud and abuse in the financial sector; state and federal regulatory enforcement; tax treatment of financial products; credit rating agencies; lending practices and securitization; unregulated financial products and practices; and corporate governance and executive compensation.
In the opening FCIC session in September, 2009, "Commissioner Murren urged the FCIC to be 'rigorous, unbiased and fearless' in its work. She took the view that the Commission’s most important responsibility was to produce a complete factual record of the causes of the financial crisis."
The commission reported its findings in January, 2011 . The report, "The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report" was covered extensively in national media. The New York Times wrote, "the Congressional commission’s scathing account of the financial crisis casts regulators in a rather unflattering light, as the sheriff who didn’t stop Wall Street from becoming the Wild West."
The published report was listed on the New York Times bestseller list and received critical acclaim as a provocative read. USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
wrote, "The report — the government's first comprehensive review of what caused the crisis — offers a detailed and compellingly written narrative of an epic financial tailspin."
Honors, awards and other involvements
In 2004, Murren was recognized as an Influential Businesswoman of the Year by Las Vegas magazine of the Las Vegas Review-JournalLas Vegas Review-Journal
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is published in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada, and one of two daily newspapers in Las Vegas . It is the flagship publication of Stephens Media LLC...
. She has received both Congressional recognition and commendation from the U.S. Senate for her work at Nevada Cancer Institute. In addition, she has received numerous awards for philanthropy including the Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
Heart Award for 2004, the Jameson Philanthropic Award from the Nevada Community Foundation, and the Humanitas Award from the Nevada Epicurean Club in 2005. In 2006, she was cited as a "Nevada Healthcare Hero." Nevada Business Journal also named her one of "Nevada's Most Respected CEO's" in August 2007.
Murren was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University and sat on the committees for audits and insurance, academic affairs, and trusteeship, nominations and by-laws. She was also a member of the Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council and founder of the Jochebed Scholarship, which supports an undergraduate student in the School of Arts and Sciences with a demonstrated career interest in improving the health and medical care of underprivileged mothers and children. Fluent in Spanish and French, in the past, she has served as a volunteer translator for the Nevada Health Centers, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare to the community of Nevada regardless of the patient’s ability to pay. She has held a gubernatorial appointment to the Nevada Academy of Health.
Personal life
Heather Murren is married to James MurrenJames Murren
James J. Murren is Chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.-Early career:Jim Murren attended Roger Ludlowe High School in Fairfield, CT, where he was a member of the Flying Tigers cross country team coached by J...
, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MGM Mirage
MGM Mirage
Not to be confused with the Las Vegas, Nevada based casino/resort operator Resorts International Holdings.MGM Resorts International is a Paradise, Nevada based corporation that brands itself as a global hospitality company. It is the second largest gaming company in the world by revenue - about...
.