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The ELFA Team

OUR LEADERSHIP

ELFA is guided by the expertise of our Board and Management Committees, comprised of senior members within our member firms, and our Independent Board Chair. Our work is coordinated by our Chief Executive Officer, Sabrina Fox.

Sabrina Fox
Chief Executive Officer

Sabrina is a recognised expert in the European leveraged finance market focused on increasing transp...

Sabrina is a recognised expert in the European leveraged finance market focused on increasing transparency, improving disclosure standards, and educating market participants on the importance of lender protections in documentation. Most recently, Sabrina was Head of European High Yield Research for Covenant Review. Prior to that, she was Counsel with DLA Piper in London.

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Alex Kay
Independent Chair of the Board

Alex is a finance partner based in London, and part of the business restructuring and insolvency tea...

Alex is a finance partner based in London, and part of the business restructuring and insolvency team. Alex represents distressed buy side investors and bondholder committees in complex cross border restructurings, assisting his clients in all aspects of a transaction from initial contingency planning and investment analysis, to implementation and management of complex workouts.

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Emma Kearney
Director of Operations

Emma joined ELFA in August 2022. She manages the day-to-day operations and provides support to our t...

Emma joined ELFA in August 2022. She manages the day-to-day operations and provides support to our team, our members and our partners. Before joining ELFA, Emma worked at Euromoney for several years, in both operations and events at senior levels.

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Sneha Nayak
Research Analyst

Sneha is a Research Analyst who is working with the team, members, and partners to attain insights o...

Sneha is a Research Analyst who is working with the team, members, and partners to attain insights on the key issues facing the European Leveraged Finance Industry. Prior to joining ELFA, she worked as a Student Panel Member representing students voices during panel meetings and studied Financial Risk Management from France’s Toulouse Business School. She gained her B.B.A. with a focus on finance from Heriot-Watt University and an MSc in Financial Management from University of Bradford.

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Michael Damoah
Research Analyst

Michael is a Research Analyst working with ELFA. He is working to support various committees on thei...

Michael is a Research Analyst working with ELFA. He is working to support various committees on their initiatives at different stages to improve ELFA's work and provide members benefits. Michael gained his undergraduate degree in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Sheffield and recently completed his MSc in Economy and Society at London School of Economics, graduating in 2022.

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Bertie Bamber
Research Analyst

Bertie is a research analyst responsible for supporting the ongoing work of the ELFA committees. Thi...

Bertie is a research analyst responsible for supporting the ongoing work of the ELFA committees. This includes supporting the production of draft position papers, research, and data analysis. Bertie studies Economics at the University College London and will be working with ELFA for the duration of his placement year in order to complete his bachelor’s degree.

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Bola Agunbiade
Research Analyst

Bola is a part time Research Analyst responsible for coordinating outreach activities and providing ...

Bola is a part time Research Analyst responsible for coordinating outreach activities and providing support to the implementation of various committee projects. She holds a BSc degree in Economics from the University of Babcock and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Accounting and Finance at the University of Leicester.

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BOARD & MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES
Bhavin Patel
Membership Committee

Partner, Credit in London. Mr. Patel has 19 years of experience in the financial markets and joined ...

Partner, Credit in London. Mr. Patel has 19 years of experience in the financial markets and joined Apollo in August 2008. Mr Patel has been Apollo’s senior trader in London since he joined and has played an integral role in sourcing assets for all of Apollo’s European CLOs since their inception in 2011. He was central in rebuilding the European Credit platform across distressed and liquid products. Prior to working at Apollo, Mr. Patel was a trader at Morgan Stanley in London from 2006 to 2008, trading high yield bonds, loans, credit default swaps (CDS) and loan CDS (LCDS). In 1999 he joined the Barclays graduate program and worked on the market risk desk in New York, and from 2001 to 2006, traded high yield bonds and CDS for the European Credit team at Barclays Capital in London. He graduated from Kings College London (University of London) with a BSc (Hons). He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst holder (CFA) from the CFA Institute.

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Simon Peatfield
Membership Committee

Mr. Peatfield is a Managing Director at HPS Investment Partners and a Co-Portfolio Manager of HPS’...

Mr. Peatfield is a Managing Director at HPS Investment Partners and a Co-Portfolio Manager of HPS’s European CLOs. Prior to joining HPS in 2015, Mr. Peatfield worked for eight years as a Portfolio Manager at Intermediate Capital Group plc, where he managed several European CLOs and was responsible for establishing the Structured Credit business. Between 2003 and 2008, Mr. Peatfield worked as a Portfolio Manager in the Structured Credit Products team at Prudential M&G. Mr. Peatfield began his career at Abbey National Treasury Services in London. Mr. Peatfield is an Investment Management Certificate holder and holds a BCom degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

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Scarlett de Posson
Membership Committee

Scarlett is Head of Origination Strategy - Private Assets at M&G Investments where she has been sinc...

Scarlett is Head of Origination Strategy - Private Assets at M&G Investments where she has been since 2011. Previously Scarlett worked successively for GSC Group and AlpInvest Partners with responsibility for European Mezzanine investments. Joining the industry in 2004, Scarlett started as an Analyst in the Investment Banking Department of Citigroup. She graduated from ESSEC Business School.

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Ross Curran
Nominations Committee

Ross joined Alcentra in February 2007 and is a Managing Director and European Liquid Credit Portfoli...

Ross joined Alcentra in February 2007 and is a Managing Director and European Liquid Credit Portfolio Manager focusing on Leveraged Loan, High Yield bond, and Multi-Asset Credit Portfolios. Ross is a member of Alcentra’s European and US Liquid Credit Investment Committees, Alcentra’s Asset Allocation Committee and is chair of Alcentra’s ESG Committee. Ross has extensive experience as a credit analyst in Alcentra’s European liquid credit team covering High Yield bonds and Leveraged Loans across a broad range of sectors. Prior to joining Alcentra, Ross worked for SEI Investments and Deutsche Bank. Ross holds a Bachelor of Business Studies in Economics and Finance from Waterford Institute of Technology (Ireland). Ross qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) in 2011.

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Alex Leonard
Nominations Committee

Mr. Leonard is a Senior Managing Director and the Senior Portfolio Manager for LCS’s European fund...

Mr. Leonard is a Senior Managing Director and the Senior Portfolio Manager for LCS’s European funds. He is also a member of Blackstone Credit’s LCS Management Committee and sits on LCS’s European Syndicated Credit Investment Committee, Global Structured Credit Investment Committee, Global Dynamic Credit Asset Allocation Committee, and CLO Origination Committee. Mr. Leonard joined Blackstone Credit, then known as GSO Capital Partners, at the time of the acquisition of Harbourmaster Capital Management Limited in 2012. Prior to that, Mr. Leonard was a Director and Co-Head of Portfolio Management and Trading at Harbourmaster, primarily responsible for fund structuring, portfolio management and trading.

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Deborah Malka
Nominations Committee

Deborah has 13 years of financial services and investment experience in the High Yield, Private Debt...

Deborah has 13 years of financial services and investment experience in the High Yield, Private Debt, Private Equity and Corporate Finance markets working most recently with Mr. Allen and Mr. Ammons at CPP Investment Board. She was responsible for deal sourcing, execution and active portfolio management. Prior to that, Deborah worked as an associate in the investment team of CCMP Capital Advisors, a private equity firm, and at Goldman Sachs International‘s Investment Banking Department focusing on Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance and IPOs. Deborah holds a Master in Management with a major in financial engineering from ESCP Europe.

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Gavin McKeown
Partnership & Events Committee

Gavin McKeown is a Senior Credit Analyst of the Emerging Markets Fixed Income team at Amundi coveri...

Gavin McKeown is a Senior Credit Analyst of the Emerging Markets Fixed Income team at Amundi covering the Telecom, Media and Transport sectors. He is based in Dublin. Gavin has invested in Emerging Markets throughout his investment career. Prior to joining the Emerging Market Credit team in July 2017, Gavin was a senior member of the former Emerging Markets and European High Yield team where he worked to build the credit research team and covered an array of sectors. He joined Amundi Asset Management (previously Pioneer Investments) in 2008 from Alliance Bernstein in London where he was a member of the Global High Yield Credit Research team. Previously he worked with the Assurance and Business Advisory division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Gavin is a qualified Chartered Accountant (FCA) and holds a Professional Diploma in Accountancy from Dublin City University and an honours degree in Economics (BA) from University College Dublin. Gavin has extensive experience of investing in both performing and distressed credit. He is an advocate for credit investor issues. He was a founding member of the European Leveraged Finance Buyside Forum in 2010 and was a board member of the AFME/High Yield Division until 2017. He was a founding member of the European Leverage Finance Association (ELFA) in 2019.

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Rob Fawn
PR & Marketing Committee

Rob Fawn is a Principal and Portfolio Manager in the European Leveraged Finance Team at PGIM Fixed I...

Rob Fawn is a Principal and Portfolio Manager in the European Leveraged Finance Team at PGIM Fixed Income, based in London. Rob is responsible for managing high yield bonds and bank loans across multiple mandates. He manages the European investments in PGIM Fixed Income’s Credit Opportunities strategy, and is also responsible for managing the European Leveraged Finance sleeves within the Global High Yield and Multi Sector portfolios. Previously, Rob was a credit analyst in the European Leveraged Finance Credit Research Team where he covered the chemicals, food, metals & mining and paper & packaging sectors. Prior to joining the Firm in 2017, he spent 12 years at Citigroup, most recently as a credit analyst on their European High Yield Credit Trading desk, having also spent 6 years in M&A. Rob received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The University of Bath.

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Clark Nicholls
PR & Marketing Committee

Clark is a Senior Portfolio Manager within the EU and Global High Yield team in fixed income, respon...

Clark is a Senior Portfolio Manager within the EU and Global High Yield team in fixed income, responsible for managing core high yield portfolios. In addition, he is also Head of European High Yield research. He has held these roles since joining AXA IM in 2015. Prior to AXA IM, Clark was Managing Director, Head of High Yield research for Spread Research. Preceding that, Clark held similar roles at Credit Suisse and Société Générale where he worked for five and four years respectively, being ranked 1st by Institutional Investor and Euromoney amongst others in 2003, 2004 and 2006. Clark holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a specialisation in Finance from Australian Business School, NSW University. Additionally, Clark hold a Bachelor’s degree with a distinction average Marketing major from Charles Sturt University.

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Rebecca Clements
Remuneration & Finance Committee

Rebecca joined Fidelity International as Sr Credit Analyst in 2016. She spent the previous 13 years...

Rebecca joined Fidelity International as Sr Credit Analyst in 2016. She spent the previous 13 years covering corporate high yield credit in both Europe and the US. During that time, she worked in a variety of buyside and sellside analyst, investment and execution roles for banks/brokers, hedge funds and real money. Prior to moving into credit investing, she worked in equity research and investment banking. Rebecca graduated with a BBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed her MBA at Kellogg School of Management. She became a Chartered Financial Analyst in 2006.

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Senan Kiran
Remuneration & Finance Committee

Senan Kiran is Director of Research - Europe and a member of the ESG Working Group at Muzinich & Co....

Senan Kiran is Director of Research - Europe and a member of the ESG Working Group at Muzinich & Co. where she has been since 2014. She has over 20 years of experience in the financial sector, of which 16 have been corporate credit research. Previously she was Senior Credit Analyst with Schroders and Associate Director at Barclays Capital focusing on European High Yield. Senan is an INSEAD alumnus and holds a CPA designation in Turkey. For ELFA, Senan also Co-Chairs the Diversity & Inclusion Committee and was formerly a Co-Chair for the Disclosure & Transparency Committee.

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Rodolfo Caceres
Member of the Board

Rodolfo joined Tikehau Capital in July 2008 where he leads a team of over 20 analysts across Paris, ...

Rodolfo joined Tikehau Capital in July 2008 where he leads a team of over 20 analysts across Paris, London, Singapore and New York covering HY and LevLoans. He started his career in 2000 at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia. In 2001 he joined Morgan Stanley (London) as a Credit Analyst and then Lehman Brothers in 2004. In 2006 he joined Fortis Investment in Paris as a buy-side Credit Analyst. He is a member of Tikehau Capital’s management committee and sits across several investment committees. He is a certified FRM (Financial Risk Manager) and holds a Masters in Strategic Management from HEC (Paris).

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David Newman
Member of the Board

David Newman is a managing director and CIO of global high yield at Allianz Global Investors (AGI). ...

David Newman is a managing director and CIO of global high yield at Allianz Global Investors (AGI). David has been involved in the European high yield market since its inception (and before the advent of the euro). Until 2008, David held various sell-side positions in research, strategy and trading at Hambros, UBS and Citi focusing on European high yield. Since 2009, David has been managing global high yield mandates for Allianz Global Investors and as such brings a global focus to ELFA. David is well versed in credit, covenants and structures and brings a wealth of experience to ELFA. David has an MBA from Bayes Business School.

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Gauthier Reymondier
Member of the Board

Gauthier Reymondier joined Bain Capital Credit in 2008. He is a Managing Director based in Bain Capi...

Gauthier Reymondier joined Bain Capital Credit in 2008. He is a Managing Director based in Bain Capital Credit’s London office and Portfolio Manager of Bain Capital Credit’s European CLOs and separate accounts. Previously, Gauthier was a Manager at Bain & Company supporting private equity funds in Europe and worked at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney and he received a B.A. from HEC Paris.

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Denis Struc
Member of the Board

Denis Struc is a Portfolio Manager on the Secured Credit Team and co-manages the Asset-Backed Securi...

Denis Struc is a Portfolio Manager on the Secured Credit Team and co-manages the Asset-Backed Securities and Global Short Duration Credit strategies at Janus Henderson Investors, a position he has held since 2016. In this role, he is responsible for portfolio management and markets and transaction analysis across the securitised and secured credit markets. Denis joined Henderson in 2010 as structured product analyst and was promoted to senior analyst in 2013. Prior to this, he was an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in the structured products department. He began his career in 2005 with HBOS, where he was working as a surveillance analyst in the structured credit and investment risk group. Denis received a BBA degree from Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova and an MSc in finance and investment from Brunel University. He holds the Investment Management Certificate and has 17 years of financial industry experience.

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Initiative Committee Co-Chairs
Emeric Chenebaux
CLO Investor Committee

Emeric joined the international business of Federated Hermes in December 2017, where he was responsi...

Emeric joined the international business of Federated Hermes in December 2017, where he was responsible for the management of syndicated leveraged loans. In 2019, he transitioned across to the structured credit team where he focuses primarily on CLOs. In this role, he leads the analysis of CLO managers, CLO deals, conducts the ESG analysis and prepares the due diligence packs for both primary and secondary market opportunities and is responsible for conducting the periodic fundamentals and risk reviews for CLOs. His previous role was at DELFF Management, based in London, where he was an investment analyst on both syndicated leveraged loans and direct lending transactions. Prior to this, Emeric worked for over two years at BNP Paribas Investment Management in Paris and New York, where he analysed both European and US syndicated leveraged loans and European private placements. Emeric holds two Master’s in Finance from University Paris Dauphine and University Paris Assas.

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Denis Struc
CLO Investor Committee

Denis Struc is a Portfolio Manager on the Secured Credit Team and co-manages the Asset-Backed Securi...

Denis Struc is a Portfolio Manager on the Secured Credit Team and co-manages the Asset-Backed Securities and Global Short Duration Credit strategies at Janus Henderson Investors, a position he has held since 2016. In this role, he is responsible for portfolio management and markets and transaction analysis across the securitised and secured credit markets. Denis joined Henderson in 2010 as structured product analyst and was promoted to senior analyst in 2013. Prior to this, he was an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in the structured products department. He began his career in 2005 with HBOS, where he was working as a surveillance analyst in the structured credit and investment risk group. Denis received a BBA degree from Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova and an MSc in finance and investment from Brunel University. He holds the Investment Management Certificate and has 16 years of financial industry experience.

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Tina De Baere
ESG Committee

Tina joined Cairn Capital – now Polus Capital Management - in 2008 and is now Head of ESG with res...

Tina joined Cairn Capital – now Polus Capital Management - in 2008 and is now Head of ESG with responsibility for Polus’s ESG activities. She started at the firm as a portfolio manager in their ABS team. Previously, Tina worked as a credit analyst at New Bond Street Asset Management and Standard & Poor’s.

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Lily Baik
ESG Committee

Lily Baik is a research analyst in the European High Yield team at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and ...

Lily Baik is a research analyst in the European High Yield team at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and is responsible for identifying investment opportunities in the TMT, Leisure, and Transportation sectors. Prior to joining the firm in 2015, Lily was a member of the Emerging Markets Fixed Income Team within J.P. Morgan Wealth Management in New York. Lily holds a B.A. in Economics and Psychology from Northwestern University and is also a CFA charterholder.

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Oliver Newman
ESG Committee

Oliver Newman is a Senior Credit Analyst at Fidelity, where he is responsible for managing a portfol...

Oliver Newman is a Senior Credit Analyst at Fidelity, where he is responsible for managing a portfolio of c.30 sub-investment grade leverage loan and high yield bond positions. Since joining Fidelity in March 2021, he has been responsible for the role-out of the firmwide ESG framework across private credit strategies: CLO’s, Loan Fund, Direct Lending Fund. This culminated in the launch of the Article 8 aligned CLO in December 2021. Fidelity was the first European CLO manager to achieve this milestone.

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Lorraine Specketer
Loan Investor Committee

Lorraine joined the Fixed Income Group at Insight in July 2007 to help establish and manage the loan...

Lorraine joined the Fixed Income Group at Insight in July 2007 to help establish and manage the loan platform and is the portfolio manager for the Loan Fund, as well as being responsible for Insight’s leveraged loan investments, more widely. She has a wide range of contacts in the European loan market and a broad range of transactional experience across both leveraged and CRE loan deals. Prior to joining Insight, Lorraine worked at Bayern LB for five years, latterly as an associate in the Acquisition & Leveraged Finance Team where she was part of a deal team that sourced and transacted loans. Lorraine graduated from the University of Bath with a BA (Hons) degree in French, German and European Studies. She also holds the Investment Management Certificate from the CFA Society of the UK.

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Saurabh Bhalla
Loan Investor Committee

Saurabh Bhalla is Managing Director and Senior Credit Analyst with primary focus on European investm...

Saurabh Bhalla is Managing Director and Senior Credit Analyst with primary focus on European investments at Oak Hill Advisors. Saurabh joined Oak Hill Advisors in 2013 and prior to that worked in the Credit Suisse European Leveraged Finance and Sponsors Group. He earned a Chartered Accountant qualification with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and B.Com. (Hons.) from the University of Delhi.

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Simon Duff
Disclosure & Transparency Committee

Simon is a Senior Analyst at M&G Investments where he currently leads the Telecom, Media and Technol...

Simon is a Senior Analyst at M&G Investments where he currently leads the Telecom, Media and Technology analyst pod. He has over 20-years experience as a credit analyst and has focused on the Telecom, Media and Technology sectors in Europe and North America covering both investment grade and high yield credits with experience of both bonds and leveraged loans. Prior to M&G, Simon worked at Insight Investments, UBS, Barclays and KPMG.

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Rebecca Clements
Disclosure & Transparency Committee

Rebecca joined Fidelity International as Sr Credit Analyst in 2016. She spent the previous 13 years...

Rebecca joined Fidelity International as Sr Credit Analyst in 2016. She spent the previous 13 years covering corporate high yield credit in both Europe and the US. During that time, she worked in a variety of buyside and sellside analyst, investment and execution roles for banks/brokers, hedge funds and real money. Prior to moving into credit investing, she worked in equity research and investment banking. Rebecca graduated with a BBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed her MBA at Kellogg School of Management. She became a Chartered Financial Analyst in 2006.

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Anita Isichei
Diversity & Inclusion Committee

Anita Isichei joined MV Credit in June 2022 as Head of HR. Prior to MV Credit, Anita was based in Sw...

Anita Isichei joined MV Credit in June 2022 as Head of HR. Prior to MV Credit, Anita was based in Switzerland as an HR consultant for The Global Fund. The majority of her career was spent within a variety of big and small international financial services firms such as Lombard Odier Investment Managers, Capital One Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank. Anita is a Swiss National, speaks fluent English/French and holds a degree in Business Management & Human Resources.

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Irem Sukan
Diversity & Inclusion Committee

Irem Sukan is an Executive Director and works as a senior credit analyst in the European HY team at ...

Irem Sukan is an Executive Director and works as a senior credit analyst in the European HY team at JP Morgan Asset Management. She started her finance career in the Chief Credit Risk office of AIG/Pinebridge Investments in New York; and later joined the firm’s Leveraged Finance team as a credit analyst in London. Prior to JP Morgan, she was a senior credit analyst at Wellington Management where she started the HY team’s globalization effort in London. Irem holds an Ms. in Foreign Service with a focus on International Finance & Commerce from Georgetown University, Washing, DC; and more recently earned an Ms. in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from King’s College, London.

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Adil Khan
Engagement Committee

Adil is Director, Compliance - EMEA and APAC at Muzinich & Co. , having joined in 2018. Prior to th...

Adil is Director, Compliance - EMEA and APAC at Muzinich & Co. , having joined in 2018. Prior to this, he was Senior Analyst at ACA Compliance Group. Adil is a law graduate with a Masters from University College London and a non-practicing barrister under the English and Welsh Bar.

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Sebastian Potocean
Engagement Committee

Sebastian is Managing Director and Head of European Research at Barings focusing on leveraged financ...

Sebastian is Managing Director and Head of European Research at Barings focusing on leveraged finance. Prior to Barings (fka as Babson Capital) in 2014, Sebastian worked in Deutsche Bank’s European Leveraged Finance team. He has been in the industry since 2007.

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Kirsten Bode
Private Debt Investor Committee

Kirsten is Co-Head of Pan European Private Debt at Muzinich & Co. Prior to joining Muzinich, Kirsten...

Kirsten is Co-Head of Pan European Private Debt at Muzinich & Co. Prior to joining Muzinich, Kirsten worked for six years as a Managing Director in the principal debt investing team at Macquarie, responsible for sourcing and executing transactions ranging from leveraged senior, unitranche and mezzanine debt to equity in the U.K., Germany and Benelux. Previously, she worked for Silver Point Capital, a U.S. based credit/distressed fund, in the private debt team in Europe. Kirsten started her career at Morgan Stanley in 1999, working in the generalist M&A and Leveraged Finance teams in Germany and London. Kirsten graduated from ESB Reutlingen and Middlesex University London with a B.A. Honors in European Business Administration.

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Alexandra Trapes
Private Debt Investor Committee

Alexandra is an Investment Director in the Direct Lending team at Federated Hermes investing in leve...

Alexandra is an Investment Director in the Direct Lending team at Federated Hermes investing in leveraged transactions across Europe and the UK under the firm’s Direct Lending Funds. Prior to this, she was at GE Capital in the leveraged finance team arranging UK and European mid-cap, club and unitranche transactions. Previously, Alexandra worked for six years in the leveraged finance underwriting business of Royal Bank of Scotland, where she focused on UK mid-market leveraged and acquisition finance deals after working on European large-cap private equity-backed transactions. Alexandra holds a Specialised Masters in Corporate Finance from the EM Lyon School of Management and a Master of Science in Management (Grande Ecole program) from the ESC Grenoble School of Management.

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