Heather H. Murren, CFA, is the cofounder and served as the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Nevada Cancer Institute (NVCI) from it's founding in 2002 until June 2009, and remains a member of its board of directors. NVCI is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and the official cancer institute of the state of Nevada as established by the State Legislature in 2003. On July 15, 2009, United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appointed Heather Murren to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

In 2002, Ms. Murren and other community leaders began an effort to build a comprehensive cancer center, as defined by the National Cancer Institute, in a young state that previously had nothing of its type. So far this effort has raised more than $200 million to build, equip and staff a research and care center which opened its doors in 2005.

In April 2002, she retired as a managing director, Global Securities Research and Economics, of Merrill Lynch where she was Group Head for the Global Consumer Products Equity Research effort. Ms. Murren was a highly ranked analyst. She was chosen six consecutive years as a member of The Institutional Investor's All-American Research Team. Her multi-year inclusion in the Greenwich survey and repeated designations by the Wall Street Journal as an all-star analyst underscored her other notable achievements in the economic and financial services community. In addition, while at Merrill Lynch, she was profiled in Fortune magazine as one of Wall Street's all-star analysts for her independent thinking, sometimes controversial, and often accurate.

In 2004, she was recognized as one of the Influential Businesswoman of the Year by Las Vegas magazine of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She has received both Congressional recognition and commendation from the U.S. Senate for her work at Nevada Cancer Institute. In addition, she has received numerous awards for philanthropy. In 2006, she was cited as a Nevada Healthcare Hero by Nevada Business Journal.

She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and has served in the past as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University; sitting on the committees for audits and insurance, academic affairs, and trusteeship, nominations and by-laws. She was also a member of the Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council and founder of the Jochebed Scholarship. Fluent in Spanish and French she has served as a volunteer translator for the Nevada Health Centers Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare to the community of Nevada regardless of the patient's ability to pay. She has held a gubernatorial appointment to the Nevada Academy of Health and has served in the past as a member of the board of directors for Mannkind, a biopharmaceutical company, and Service First Bank of Nevada, a community bank in Southern Nevada. She is married to James Murren, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MGM.