Earl Heffintrayer manages the US transportation team, which includes airports, toll roads and seaports.  Earl has led research on US airports and is highly experienced on a broad range of public-private partnerships and project financings in the transportation, higher education, social infrastructure, and data center sectors. 

Earl’s prior experience includes work as a financial analyst at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and as a civil engineer on large infrastructure projects in the New York City region. Earl is a CFA charter holder and is based in Dallas.

Andrew Blease is an Associate Managing Director in Moody’s EMEA Infrastructure team, based in Paris, and responsible for a team of analysts covering transport infrastructure across EMEA and utilities in central and eastern Europe.

Over the course of a long career at Moody’s, Andrew has acted as lead analyst for a broad range of infrastructure and project finance issuers. He has followed the transport infrastructure sector since joining Moody’s in 2000, and has been instrumental in the development of Moody’s rating methodologies, having authored the first global airport methodology and co-authored the first PFI/PPP construction period methodology. He played a key role in the development of the EMEA Infrastructure team having been involved in the first ratings in the sector and subsequently in building the franchise. Andrew is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events, and has been called as an expert witness to various Government related enquiries through the course of his Moody’s career.

Prior to joining Moody’s Andrew spent his career in international banking, predominantly at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. Over this period he was involved in both the advisory and debt-arranging of project finance transactions, predominantly in the PFI and transport sectors.

Andrew studied finance at London Metropolitan University and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers

Joanna Fic is a Senior Vice President in Moody’s EMEA Infrastructure Finance team, based in London. She is currently responsible for a portfolio of utilities and transport infrastructure companies in the United Kingdom and Africa, in addition to certain transport infrastructure companies in Norway and Turkey. With extensive credit experience across both the utility and infrastructure sectors, Joanna has a deep understanding of both conventional and complex structured financing arrangements.

Over the course of her career at Moody’s, Joanna has written extensively on transport infrastructure credit, covering airports, ports and toll roads. She has contributed to the development of a number of transport infrastructure methodologies and was the author of Moody’s Rating Methodology for Privately Managed Toll Roads, published in October 2017. Joanna has also published widely on European utilities, including in Germany, United Kingdom and Central and Eastern Europe. A highly regarded analyst and respected commentator, Joanna is a frequent speaker at conferences, investor roundtables and other events.

Prior to joining Moody’s in 2007, Joanna was a credit risk manager at Citigroup in Warsaw, where she was responsible for a diversified portfolio of corporates. Joanna holds a master’s degree in Finance and Banking from Warsaw School of Economics.

Ursula Cassinerio is an Assistant Vice President - Analyst on the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance team at Moody’s, based in New York. Ursula covers a diverse portfolio of infrastructure issuers, with a focus in the transportation sector, including airports, toll roads, and seaports as well as project finance issuers. Ursula leads Moody’s research of the US Airports sector.

Prior to joining Moody’s, Ursula worked as an analyst for Fitch Ratings’ local affiliate and Standard & Poor’s Ratings. Ursula holds a BA from Universidad de Buenos Aires, a Master’s degree in Finance from Universidad de San Andrés and an executive certificate in Infrastructure from Harvard Kennedy School.