Adela Cepeda
Advisory Board MemberFor 21 years, Adela led A.C. Advisory Inc. as Founder & President a leading full service independent advisor firm with clients made up of major municipal issuers. The firm was recognized as a Top 10 National Financial Advisor. Prior roles included Co-Founder & Managing Director at Abacus Financial Group for four years and Vice President, Corporate Finance, at Smith Barney for 11 years.
Today, Adela is co-Founder and Chair of Angeles Investors. She serves as an independent director of BMO Financial Corp., the U.S. holding company for BMO Harris Bank with over 15,000 employees and 550 branches located principally in the Midwest.
She serves on the boards of the UBS Funds, the Pathway Mutual Funds and chairs the Mercer Mutual Funds. Adela previously chaired the audit committee of the board of Wyndham International, Inc., a 20,000 employee, publicly traded company that owned and operated hotels and resorts in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. The Board at Wyndham tapped Ms. Cepeda to chair the committee of independent directors designated to evaluate strategic alternatives leading to the sale of Wyndham to Blackstone Group for $3.2 billion.
Adela has extensive community involvement and serves on the Cook County Council of Economic Advisors and the City of Chicago Community Development Commission, as well as on the boards of the Chicago Foundation for Women, Arrupe College, is Chair of Teatro Vista, and was recently invited to join the Commercial Club of Chicago. Plus, Adela is a Board Member of the NACD Chicago Chapter.
A native of Colombia, Adela is an honors graduate of Harvard College with a major in Economics and has an MBA from the University of Chicago School of Business.