Team

Nikolai J. Sklaroff joined the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) as its Capital Finance Director in May 2022. As Capital Finance Director, he is responsible for developing, implementing and administering the SFPUC Capital Financing activities across the agency. The Capital Finance Director leads a professional team supporting the agency's capital project funding activities including financing transactions, banking agreements, commercial paper program activities, credit rating activities and debt administration, among others. The role serves in a key leadership function at the SFPUC. The Capital Finance Director manages the day-to-day operations of the SFPUC’s $6+ billion outstanding debt portfolio and the daily operations of the SFPUC’s $1.5 billion Commercial Paper Program across three enterprises, Water, Wastewater and Power.   

Nikolai has spent more than three decades in the public finance industry and mostly recently served as the Deputy Director of Finance, Debt & Treasury Management for the City of San José. Nikolai has also spent 22 years as a senior public finance investment banker as well as a senior rating analyst and a financial advisor. He was a senior investment banker in San Francisco with Citigroup Global Markets, J. P. Morgan Securities - where he was national Head of Cultural Institutions investment banking - and Wells Fargo Securities. Prior to becoming an investment banker in 1997, Nikolai was a senior Moody’s Investors Service rating agency analyst and member of Moody's rating committee. Nikolai began his career as a financial advisor with Public Financial Management, Inc. in his hometown of Philadelphia. 

A frequent speaker at industry conferences and author on public finance topics, Nikolai has also served on multiple boards of directors and advisory committees.  Nikolai is currently serving on the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) Debt Committee and as a former California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC) technical advisory committee member, Nikolai continues to assist CDIAC with policy publications.  Nikolai has a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School, a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science (Public Policy) from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts in Politics and Economics from Durham University in England. He was also completing graduate public administration studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs prior to being relocated to San Francisco.