Dr. Philipp Bunnenberg

Dr. Philipp Bunnenberg is Head of Alternative Markets at Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.V. (BAI) and is responsible for the association's activities in the areas of private & liquid alternative markets and public relations. After studying economics and business administration at the Universities of Potsdam, Münster, and Vigo, he initially worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Finance and Banking at the University of Potsdam. During this time, he completed his dissertation on closet indexing and risks in the ETF market. Dr. Bunnenberg is the host of multiple private markets conferences in Germany, a speaker on alternative investment-related topics at conferences throughout Europe, and the author of numerous publications.

Prof. Dr. Ludovic Phalippou

Ludovic is a Professor of Financial Economics at Oxford's Said Business School, author of "private equity laid bare." Recognized as one of the "40 Most Outstanding Business School Profs Under 40 In The World" by Poets&Quants (2014). His widely cited research appears in leading academic journals and media like The Economist and Financial Times. He collaborates with major investors (Norway fund, Dutch pension funds) and has led private market research at Blackrock. He's developed a Big Data-driven private equity index with JPMorgan. At Oxford, Ludovic teaches courses on Wealth Management, Valuation and Private Equity. He also created several executive programs, including an online course on Private Markets.

Dr. Mailin Badurina

Dr. Mailin Badurina advises institutional investors in the areas of private credit/private equity for Ambienta, a European investor focusing on companies driven by environmental megatrends whose products or services improve resource efficiency and/or reduce pollution.
Prior to Ambienta, she worked for the European private credit provider Pemberton Asset Management, where she successfully supported the fundraising processes for the flagship “Mid-Market Direct Lending” strategy and the “Strategic Credit Opportunities” strategy.
Other career milestones include positions at Bankhaus Lampe in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, as well as in corporate banking at Commerzbank in Düsseldorf. Dr. Mailin Badurina earned her doctorate in economics from Steinbeis University Berlin with a thesis on “Decision-making behavior of institutional investors in illiquid funds.

Jens Hennes

Jens Hennes studied Banking and Finance at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. He spent four years at Commerzbank AG in Essen and Dusseldorf, where he was responsible for institutional clients, particularly in the areas of interest rate and currency management as well as asset management.
In 2005, Jens Hennes joined the Pension Fund of the Chamber of Pharmacists of North Rhine. He has served as Managing Director since 2013 and was appointed Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2023. Since 2013, he has been responsible, among other things, for listed and alternative investments, member administration, and financial and accounting matters. Since 2016, he has also served as Managing Director of the Pension Fund of the Chamber of Veterinary Surgeons of North Rhine.
In addition, Jens Hennes has lectured and continues to lecture at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and the European Business School. His teaching focuses on risk management, banking operations, and real estate economics.

Dr. Claudia Lesmeister

Dr. Claudia Lesmeister (née Peitzmeier) is an investment professional at AltamarCAM with a focus on private credit. Her work focuses on the analysis, due diligence, and implementation of private credit investments in Europe and the US across a broad spectrum of strategies, including different market segments and manager profiles.

She previously worked in private equity at Flossbach von Storch and gained further professional experience at DEG - Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft. Claudia Lesmeister holds a doctorate from the University of Cologne in empirical capital market research and is a CFA® charterholder of the CFA Institute.

Natalia Shelestovych

Natalia Shelestovych is an Investment Manager for alternative assets, Group Investments Management, at Munich Re Group, responsible for the Private Debt portfolio of the Munich Re Group. 
In her prior role she was a Portfolio Manager European Equities at MEAG responsible for equity funds with focus on German equity market. Prior to joining the MR Group in 2016, she was a Junior Portfolio Manager European Equities at Warburg Invest and a General Management Trainee at Warburg Bank. 
She holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in International Business and Economics from the Kyiv National Economic University in Kyiv, Ukraine, as well as a Mannheim Master in Management, M. Sc. from the University of Mannheim, Germany.

Olaf Streitenberger

Olaf Streitenberger is Senior Portfolio Manager Fixed income and joined the company in 1990 and is based in Frankfurt am Main. Prior to his current role, Olaf headed the Credit Risk Portfolio Management Analytics and Tools team within the Corporate & Investment Banking division. In this function he focused on the oversight of stress test analysis, watch list process and product limit monitoring. Prior to this role Olaf worked for an independent Credit Risk rating control function "Asset Quality Review" in Frankfurt and New York. He has a degree in Banking Business ("Diplomierter Bankbetriebswirt") from Frankfurt School of Finance & Management; MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business; MBA from Goethe Business School.

Callum Smith

Callum Smith is part of the European Private Credit business unit based in London, where he is the Head of Credit Secondaries Europe & Asia. He has been with Partners Group since 2018 and has ten years of industry experience. Prior to joining Partners Group, he worked in Leveraged Finance at Bank of Ireland in London. He holds a bachelor’s degree in International Business from the University of Birmingham, UK.

Achim Pütz

From 2003 to 2010, he led the German Financial Services practice group as a partner at SJ Berwin LLP. From 2010 until April 2019, he held the same role and additionally served as Managing Partner of the Frankfurt office for the U.S. law firm Dechert LLP.

Achim Pütz is the founder and chairman of the Federal Association of Alternative Investments (Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.V.) and was a long-standing council member of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). He has authored numerous articles for investment and insurance regulatory publications and is a sought-after speaker at industry events.

Since May 2019, Achim Pütz has been a partner at Luther.

Charles Andros

Charles Andros began his career working as a clerk on the floor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) for an S&P Futures Pit Trader. This unconstrained environment, where investment exposure can be multiples of a firm’s capital base, left an indelible impression on his trading style and risk management philosophy, which is to detach emotion from investing and minimize risk. After two years of CME trading, Charles developed into a proprietary trader at ETG, which Schonfeld Securities later acquired. While at ETG and Schonfeld, Charles specialized in convertible bonds and preferred securities, two of the most credit-intensive and structurally complex sectors of the fixed income market. Following the Great Recession, Charles’s affinity for hard assets, high yields, and current cash flow naturally compelled him to acquire depressed commercial real estate assets on behalf of his limited partners. In acquiring real estate properties, Charles recognized the absence of capital generally available for small businesses, non-traditional borrowers, and secondary real estate transactions. This insight inspired Charles to join the launch of Bay Point Advisors, LLC, where he could focus on complex transactions and sectors of the economy that mainstream lenders have ignored.

William T. Lloyd

Mr. Lloyd serves as a Managing Director and Product Specialist for TCW Private Credit. Prior to joining TCW in 2014, Mr. Lloyd was a Managing Director at VelocityShares, where he spent the previous five years building the innovative exchange-traded products company. Prior to joining VelocityShares, Mr. Lloyd was a Portfolio Strategist in the research department with Bridgewater Associates where he worked with institutional investors globally on the structuring of portfolios and alternative investments. Prior to joining Bridgewater, Mr. Lloyd was Managing Director, research at Barclays Capital in London. He had global responsibility for Portfolio Strategies, Index Products, and Securitization research. He was instrumental in the growth of Barclays’ inflation-linked bond business, and was a founding board member of iBoxx plc. Mr. Lloyd joined Barclays in 1997 from Credit Suisse First Boston. He serves on the board of The Susan Fund, a charitable organization granting scholarships to cancer survivors and on the President’s Council at Union College. Mr. Lloyd is a graduate of Union College we he received a BA in Political Science and of Columbia University where he received an MBA.

Ignacio Sarria

Ignacio Sarria, Managing Director, joined new Mountain in 2013. Before joining New Mountain, Mr. Sarria was CEO and co-founder of Arcano Capital, an alternative investments firm specializing in fund of funds, secondaries and co-investments that manages over $1.5bn of capital for international institutional investors from Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Latin America.

Prior to founding Arcano Capital in 2005, Mr. Sarria worked as an investment banker for ten years at Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust, focusing on leveraged buy-out transactions. Mr. Sarria served as head of the Mergers & Acquisitions team for Spain and Portugal covering the largest corporate accounts in the Iberian Peninsula as well as the largest international private equity firms. Prior to that, Mr. Sarria worked for Arthur Andersen on auditing and consulting projects for large industrial and financial services firms.

Mr. Sarria earned a B.A. from the University of Navarra. He has also participated as an exchange student at Hohenheim University in Stuttgart (Germany) and the Harvard Business School summer program.

Hans Stamm

Hans Stamm, attorney and specialist in tax law, focuses on advising clients in the area of alternative investment funds and structured asset management products, particularly with regard to the legal and tax structuring and implementation of the above products. He also advises on the structuring and implementation of digital asset investment products (including crypto funds and tokenized fund structures).

Joaquin Ardit

Joaquin Ardit is a lead portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors. He joined Allianz in 2012 as a fixed income investment manager for the Life and Health insurance companies of Allianz Germany and has been leading private debt as an asset class. Previously, Joaquin worked as a fixed income derivatives structurer for JPMorgan in London (UK). Joaquin holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid (Spain), a Master’s in Finance from Imperial College London (UK) and an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York (USA).

Marco Busca

Marco Busca leads the Indirect Private Debt activity at Generali Asset Management, overseeing fund selection and monitoring across global managers, and managing the newly launched Private Credit Secondaries strategy. He advises several private debt funds and acts as investment manager for EMEA insurance portfolios.

Previously, he worked at Banca IMI (Intesa Sanpaolo Group) as a proprietary trader in securities financing and derivatives and began his career in Financial Risk Management at PwC.

Marco holds a cum laude degree in Economics from the University of Padua, an MSc in Finance from Bocconi (exchange at Vanderbilt), and is CESGA certified. He is currently enrolled in the Executive MBA at ESCP Business School.

Bernard Galea

Bernard is a Managing Director in Pantheon’s Global Private Credit team. Prior to joining Pantheon Bernard worked as a Director in Muzinich and Co’s European Direct Lending team, before which he was a member of Lincoln International’s Debt Advisory team having started his career at KPMG. Bernard holds a LL.M in International Business Law from the University of London, is a qualified accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Srdjan Vlaski

Srdjan Vlaski is a member of the private debt team, focusing on specialty finance credit strategies and secondaries.
Mr. Vlaski received his master’s in finance from the University of Lausanne and is a CAIA member and CFA charterholder.

Susan Kasser

Susan Kasser, CFA, is the Head of Neuberger Berman Private Debt. The Private Debt business manages $25 billion of investor capital dedicated to investing in first-lien and unitranche loans to market-leading companies owned by private equity firms. Prior to joining Neuberger Berman in 2013, she was an investment professional in the Direct Lending business of the Carlyle Group. Prior to joining Carlyle, Ms. Kasser worked at Goldman Sachs in several roles, including as an investment banker in the Leveraged Finance group, a fund investor and direct private equity co-investor in the Private Equity Group, and as a financial analyst in Global Investment Research. Susan was named one of Barron’s 2025 100 Most Influential Women in US Finance, one of the Wall Street Journal's 2024 Women to Watch and one of Pensions & Investments 2023 Most Influential Women in Institutional Investing. In addition to serving on the National Board of the Enterprise Club of the American Enterprise Institute, Susan serves on the Investment Committee and the Board of Directors for Vail Health, an independent, nonprofit health care system in Eagle County, Colorado. Ms. Kasser received an M.A. in International Economics and Finance and a B.A. in Philosophy from Brandeis University, where she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst.

Philipp Nowak

Mr. Nowak is an executive vice president in the London office. He is a credit strategist and leads PIMCO’s EMEA and Asia-Pacific credit product strategy teams. Prior to rejoining PIMCO in 2017, he was a vice president and client portfolio manager for global investment grade and unconstrained credit at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. He has 15 years of investment experience and holds a master’s degree in finance from London Business School, an MBA from CEIBS in Shanghai, and a master’s degree in business administration (Diplom) from FOM University of Applied Sciences Cologne. He is a CFA charterholder and a certified financial risk manager (FRM).

Juan Grana

Juan Grana is a Managing Director at Crescent Capital and Head of Bank Capital Solutions. Mr. Grana brings more than 20 years of deal-making experience in the credit markets. Before joining Crescent, he was Managing Director, Senior Portfolio Manager, and Head of Origination at Chorus Capital. Prior to that, he played a key role at ArrowMark Partners, where he established the firm’s European offices and led investments in risk-sharing transactions. Mr. Grana spent more than a decade at Credit Suisse, where he co-led Capital and Credit Risk Modeling before being appointed as Managing Director in Credit Structuring. In that role, he was instrumental in developing the firm’s risk-sharing capabilities. He also served as a Managing Director in the Structured Solutions Group at Nomura.   Mr. Grana holds a MPhys in Physics from The University of Oxford.

Gregory Hardiman

Gregory Hardiman is a Managing Director at Crescent Capital, focusing on GP-LP Solutions within private credit in the New York office. He joined Crescent from 17Capital, where he was a Partner and co-led the firm’s US investment efforts and was a member of the Investment Committee and Executive Committee. Gregory has sourced, led, and/or executed over $3 billion in bespoke GP-LP financings, spanning a wide range of borrower types and use cases. He previously worked at Man Group and Conning, with roles spanning leveraged credit and corporate development. Gregory received a BA in Management from Villanova University and an MBA from Columbia University. He is also a CFA Charterholder.

Alok Wadhawan

Alok joined Muzinich in February 2020 and is the Global Head of Aviation Finance. He has over 20 years of experience in structured finance and prior to joining Muzinich was head of aviation finance at Investec, a FTSE 250 investment bank. He worked for nearly 14 years in Investec and was one of the founding members of the aviation finance business. He was instrumental in building their aviation finance fund platform and also established aviation debt funds for institutional investors. Alok has extensive industry relationships across financial institutions, leasing companies, manufacturers and airlines. He earned a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from Calcutta University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant, MBA (Finance) from India.