JPMorgan Chase investment banker Tim Ryan, the new chief executive of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, doesn’t much care that the organization he was tapped to lead got off to a shaky start.

[IMGCAP(1)]The result of a merger in 2006 of the Bond Market Association and the Securities Industry Association, SIFMA began with co-CEOs, one from each of its constituent parts — a sign of problems from the get-go, K Street sources said.

“The idea that they were going to put two things together, and have it work like clockwork from day one, doesn’t happen,” said Ryan, who as a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and New York City investment banker has been through several mergers.

“From today on, we have one organization, we don’t have two. If you don’t want to be a member of this organization, then leave. So that’s the way it is. I don’t care whether ‘I worked at the Bond Market Association before’ or ‘this is the way it was at SIA before.’”

His plans for SIFMA are lofty. He wants it to become “the pre-eminent financial services trade association in the world.” But, he said during an interview last week, “I didn’t really have a vision thing. My background is such, the vision will appear to you quickly once you understand what’s going on.”

But he said it was too early to discuss any internal changes and whether staffing levels would increase or decrease.

Some K Street observers criticized SIFMA for choosing a Republican. But Ryan, who will be based in New York, said that as a Treasury Department official in the 1980s and ’90s, which included the Keating Five savings and loan scandal, he worked with plenty of Democrats.

Ryan, 62, started out as a labor lawyer in a D.C. firm that eventually became Reed Smith, then in 1976 served as deputy general counsel of the Ford presidential campaign. He was part of the Reagan administration’s transition team in 1980 and then became solicitor of the Labor Department before returning to Reed Smith, where he focused on pension and investment law.

“I did a lot of Washington-type legal work: influencing regulations, legislation, lobbying,” he said of that time. “I don’t fancy myself as a real lobbyist, but that’s what I did during that time period.” He returned to the government to work at Treasury.

In December 1992, Ryan left Treasury and joined JPMorgan, where he’s been an investment banker for the past 15 years. Most recently, he was vice chairman of investment banking for financial institutions and governments, a job that included trips to Iraq to help the country restructure its debt.

Ryan said he’s not moving to SIFMA for the money. “I’m also taking a pay cut,” he no ted, declining to say what percentage that pay cut would be.

“My view is that trying to pull all these different things together and applying the various areas of expertise to a challenging, demanding industry sector, which this is, is really interesting as hell.”

Ryan said he plans to spend this month meeting with SIFMA members, crafting the group’s priorities on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, adding that he expects the stimulus package to be on that list. “We’re going to be very involved in whatever is proposed from a stimulus standpoint,” he said.

More Change at NAM. The National Association of Manufacturers, which has undergone a large-scale personnel transformation since the arrival in 2004 of former Michigan Gov. John Engler (R), has yet another change to announce. The group has elevated Jay Timmons, formerly NAM’s senior vice president, to executive vice president.

That’s the title formerly held by NAM’s longtime top lobbyist, Michael Baroody, who joined Porter Novelli in November. Baroody had been widely considered a top candidate for the job that went to Engler. After Engler was installed as president, Baroody stayed on for a couple of years, including his last months in an unpaid role. Sources familiar with NAM said that Timmons had long been viewed as Engler’s choice to replace Baroody.

As part of his new job, Timmons, a former chief of staff to then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), will be responsible for NAM’s government relations, communications and grass-roots advocacy.

K Street Moves. The Business Software Alliance has downloaded a new vice president of government relations: Katherine McGuire, a 17-year veteran of the Senate, who spent the past decade working for Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.). In her new job, McGuire will oversee BSA’s domestic and international public policy programs from Washington, D.C., to Brussels.

• Elizabeth Coffin, most recently tax counsel to the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, has joined the Washington office of United Technologies Corp. as director of tax affairs. She previously worked on the personal staff for Ways and Means ranking member Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.).

• McGuireWoods Consulting is expanding its communications and lobbying operation by bringing on David Henderson, a one-time CBS News correspondent and former Edelman executive, who will be director of the strategic communications and issues advocacy practice. In addition, Mark Hubbard, a former television news anchor in Virginia, comes on board as vice president of strategic communications and state government relations and will be based in the firm’s Richmond office.

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