Rasha has over 18 years of experience in capital markets. She held successive executive and leadership positions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (previously Merrill Lynch & Co.) where she was Managing Director and Head of Cross Asset Solutions & Strategies (CASS) in Canada.
Rasha has a global asset focus and extensive experience in building capital markets businesses, including setting up new platforms, joint ventures and executing large structured finance transactions. During her tenure, she built the largest non-bank residential mortgage funding business and launched a leading asset-based financing platform, two of the most lucrative businesses for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Canada. A leader in her structured finance field, Rasha executed large financings across a variety of sectors including: financial services, retail, automotive, real estate and REITs. She launched several inaugural financing products that became a blueprint in the market, and she positioned and maintained Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s leading platform in the Canadian market.
As head of Cross Asset Solutions and Strategies, she advised global sovereign wealth funds, Canadian pension funds, hedge funds and large institutional clients. In this capacity, she was responsible for developing, structuring and executing capital markets solutions as well as derivative and structured strategies to optimize their overall cross-asset investment portfolios and maximize risk/returns. In addition to her business responsibilities, she was a member of the Asset/Liability Committee and the Management Committees for Debt Capital Markets and Equity Capital Markets.
Rasha regularly represented Bank of America Merrill Lynch with regulatory bodies and was a sought-after speaker and key opinion leader at industry conferences. Rasha was President and Chair of the Mortgage- Backed Securities Issuers Association (MBSIA) for 2 consecutive terms, a Director on the Board of Russell Investments in Canada for 3 years and part of its Audit Committee 2009 – 2011. Rasha joined Merrill Lynch in 2002 in Global Markets and prior to her time at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Rasha was an Executive Director in Structured Finance at CIBC World Markets and earlier at TD securities.
Rasha holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Montreal in Financial Economics and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from McGill University.