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Simon is a Managing Director on the Hedge Funds and Private Credit teams and has over 21 years of experience in alternative investments. Simon is responsible for the management and oversight of Hedge Funds and Private credit investment programs in Europe, the Middle East, and Australia and focuses on portfolio construction and manager selection, providing customized investment recommendations. Simon is an instructor for ILPA’s “Private Credit for the Limited Partner”, a one-day, deep-dive seminar offered to ILPA members. 

Prior to joining Aksia in 2016, Simon spent twelve years at HSBC. There, Simon held several roles in alternative investments research and portfolio management and most recently was Head of Portfolio Management at HSBC Alternative Investments Limited. 

Simon graduated with first-class honors from the University of Oxford with a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from The London School of Economics. He is a CFA charterholder. 

Aysha Gilmore is a History graduate with a postgraduate degree in journalism and an NCTJ diploma. Before joining Alternative Credit Investor, she worked for trade publications in the financial sector, including Net Zero Investor and Room151. Prior to that, she gained experience at various local newspapers. Aysha writes the news, features and profile interviews at Alternative Credit Investor, with particular interests in investor allocations, portfolio movements and partnerships. 

Timothée Bloch is the Founder and CEO of Altima Capital and a co-founder of Alpha Credit, a European structured private credit platform focused on direct lending and working-capital solutions for SMEs. Over the past decade, he has been actively involved in originating, structuring, and managing cross-border private credit transactions globally.

His approach to direct lending is rooted in transactional and trade-finance techniques, using asset-backed, self-liquidating structures to finance the broader real economy beyond traditional trade flows. Timothée specialises in designing tailored financing solutions that align institutional investor requirements with the operational realities of SMEs, while managing legal, regulatory, and execution complexity across jurisdictions. Through Altima, he focuses on delivering scalable, transparent, and efficient private credit strategies that support SME growth while meeting institutional standards in governance, risk management, and reporting.

Education

B. Comm, University College Dublin MBS, University College Dublin

Professional Experience

J.P. Morgan, 1999-2014 Bain Capital Credit, 2014-present

Tom Maughan is a Partner at Bain Capital Credit and leads the European Private Credit business. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Tom was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan responsible for leading the European team of J.P. Morgan Mezzanine (a private credit investment business of J.P. Morgan).

Dave has been Vice President of Bayshore Mortgage Funding LLC for the last 6 years.  Bayshore is a privately held residential mortgage banker based in Maryland USA, originating on average over $500 million annually in residential mortgage production.  He is a seasoned mortgage finance professional well-versed in all Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA & Non-QM guidelines.  Over this career Dave has run a mortgage platform for a US based bank, overseen Secondary Marketing and has been a Top 200 Mortgage Originator in the United States multiple times throughout his career.  With over three decades of residential mortgage origination experience, Dave has originated well over $1 billion of personal residential mortgage production throughout his career.  He has been interviewed by USA Today, Associated Press, and National Mortgage Professional.  Dave resides with his wife, kids and multiple dogs in New Jersey.

Dominic Ashcroft is a Managing Director and the European Head of Private Credit Origination for Blackstone Credit and Insurance (BXCI) based in London. Mr. Ashcroft is involved in the origination, researching, structuring, and advising on investments.

Prior to joining Blackstone in 2025, Mr. Ashcroft worked at Goldman Sachs for over two decades, most recently running the EMEA Leveraged Finance business where he was also a member of the Firmwide Capital Committee.  He serves as a Trustee for Street Child, an educational charity, and Radius, which helps forge community engagement in West London.

Mr. Ashcroft graduated with a Double First in Economics from Cambridge University, where he was a Foundation Scholar and recipient of the Patrick Cross Prize for Economics.

BMO Sponsor Finance (SF) is a leading North America private credit originator & manager, focused on lending to core middle market companies backed by private equity firms.  We invest for our own balance sheet + for partners in investment programs that we control. These programs can take a variety of forms & we are flexible to meet our partner’s requirements.  

Mr. Landis joined BMO SF in 2017 and leads its Investor Business Development efforts.  Prior to joining BMO, Mr. Landis acted in a similar capacity at Deerpath Capital Management.  And prior to Deerpath, Mr. Landis spent 16 years in the Institutional Fixed Income market at Bear Stearns, J.P. Morgan, UBS and others, focusing on structured products to financial institutions.  Responsibilities included sales & trading, research, portfolio analytics, and strategy.  Mr. Landis earned a B.S. in Business from Cornell University and an MBA from Boston University.  He holds Series 7 and 63 licenses.

Felix is a Partner at Bright Capital and heads the Frankfurt based Private Credit Investment Team. He joined Bright Capital in 2018 and is responsible for originating, underwriting, and executing sponsor-backed and predominantly sponsor-less investment opportunities with a strong buy-and-build angle in the DACH lower-mid-market. Felix has >10 years of industry experience and, prior to joining Bright Capital, worked in Leveraged Finance at HSBC, where he focused on structuring and executing mid and large cap sponsor-backed LBO transactions. Felix started his career in Investment Banking, holds a Master of Science in Finance and studied in Germany, the US and France.

Rebecca (Becca) Davis is an Investment Managing Director at Cambridge Associates is part of the firm’s Credit Investment Group.

Becca joined the firm in 2017 and works with institutional investors globally to build bespoke private credit portfolios. Her role incorporates manager underwriting and portfolio construction. She oversees investment portfolios both in an advisory capacity and as an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO). She is a voting member of CA’s Research Investment Committee and is based in London.

Prior to joining CA, Becca was a member of the discretionary investment services team at Willis Towers Watson where she helped manage total and alternative asset portfolios on behalf of UK defined benefit pension funds.

Becca is a CFA® charterholder and holds an MChem (Hons) from the University of Oxford.

Vijay Padmanabhan is a Managing Director at Cambridge Associates. 

Vijay is based in our London office and has over 15 years of experience as a credit investor. He leads manager research for European private credit and helps steer the firm’s private credit efforts in Europe. He also performs due diligence on investment opportunities in credit, special situations, and distressed markets. 

Prior to joining CA in 2022, Vijay spent most of his career in London with a few years in Mumbai and Hong Kong investing in the credit markets in the Asian region. During his career, he worked on credit teams at Citigroup, Post Advisory, Fidelity, and KKR, and has deployed over $5 billion across various types of credit—both public and private—and across credit cycles. He has also held several senior roles on credit committees, including overseeing restructuring situations across different jurisdictions. Previously, Vijay was a Partner at PwC, leading restructuring efforts in India where he managed one of the largest insolvencies in the country. 

Vijay received his MBA from the London Business School, UK. He received his MS from Virginia Tech, USA and his Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Madras, India. 

Roxana is an international investor and strategic advisor, with a career encompassing senior roles in banking, commodities, geopolitics and tech across the UK, Europe, and MENA.  

Based in London, Roxana is a Chief Strategy Officer of digital real estate lending platform Blend, which is backed by several high-profile family offices and institutional investors. 

She is a member of the Advisory Board of Women In Finance and has been recognized as a senior leader in the Innovate Finance Women In FinTech powerlist.  

Prior to her current roles, Roxana was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley and Barclays, where she held various senior roles across commodities trading, strategy and research.  

Danny is the Co-Founder of Colesco and serves as its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer. He also chairs both the Managing Board and the Investment Committee.

Within Colesco, Danny’s primary deal focus lies with the UK based PE sponsor community and at a firm level investment management oversight, executive HR, general management, compliance, legal, and risk management.

Danny has over 25 years of experience in debt origination and execution. Prior to establishing Colesco, he was Global Head of Leveraged Finance and Sponsor Origination at Rabobank. He held several other notable positions at Rabobank such as Head of Sponsor Origination, Head of Leveraged Finance Origination (Europe), and executive director positions involving execution of leveraged finance transactions and coverage of large cap companies. Danny started his career as a strategy consultant in the Rabobank Group Strategy and E-commerce teams.

Danny holds an Executive MBA from IMD and a MSc in International Finance from the University of Amsterdam.

Alexandre is a Private Credit professional and Bootstrap Europe’s first alumni, with a track record exceeding $1.6bn across multiple jurisdictions and stages. He is now launching GPI, Europe’s first solo-GP Growth Lender dedicated to the underserved lower mid-market.

Scott Duggal is a Senior Director in the Funds Group at KBRA. Scott joined KBRA in 2024 and has over 20 years of experience in credit, with a core focus on CLOs, RMBS, and ABS.

Prior to joining KBRA, Scott was lead ABS/CLO portfolio manager and head of European consumer ABS, RMBS, and CLO research at abrdn. Scott joined abrdn in 2014 following the acquisition of Ignis Asset Management, where he started in 2009 and was responsible for investments in ABS, RMBS, and CLOs.

Previously, Scott was a director in Fitch’s Structured Credit Ratings team, responsible for ratings and criteria development on a broad range of structured products including CLOs. Prior to that, Scott spent three years at Shell Asset Management Company, where he was responsible for the CLO portfolio invested in U.S. CLO equity, CLO mezzanine debt, and other performing and distressed structured credit.

Scott holds a BSc. (First Class Honours) in computer science with management from King’s College London and an MSc. in investment management from Bayes Business School (City Business School, University of London).

Sanjeev Jeyakumar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lenkie Technologies, a cash-flow management and lending platform serving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. Since 2021, he has led Lenkie through rapid growth - supporting hundreds of SMEs and delivering £100M+ in funding through technology-led lending solutions.

Previously, Sanjeev served as Vice President of Sales at Diginex, where he played a key role in driving commercial growth ahead of the company’s listing on Nasdaq. He began his career at Citigroup in emerging markets credit trading, where he structured more than £2 billion in credit transactions and ran a £500M bond and credit derivative trading book across the Middle East and North Africa region.

Sanjeev holds a Master’s in Economics and Management from the University of Oxford.

Antonello Aquino is Managing Director, global co-head for Insurance, Funds and Asset Management, and EMEA Private Credit at Moody’s Ratings. He leads Moody’s analytical team responsible for maintaining credit ratings on insurers, funds, and asset managers, as well as private credit entities across EMEA.​

Antonello joined Moody’s in 2008 as a Senior Insurance Analyst, covering major European (re)insurers. Prior to Moody’s, he led the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) rating advisory practice at Credit Suisse in Europe. His earlier experience includes roles as a Senior Analyst in Standard & Poor’s insurance sector, and positions within the FIG M&A teams at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) and ABN AMRO.​

He holds an MBA from HEC Paris and is an alumnus of London Business School. He graduated cum laude in Business Administration from Bocconi University in Italy. Antonello is fluent in English, Italian, and French.​

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).

Dagmara is Co-Chief Investment Officer for Tetragon Credit Partners. She joined the group in early 2007 and prior to that was an Associate in Morgan Stanley’s Securitized Products Group working on the structuring desks in New York and London. At Morgan Stanley, she was involved in the structuring and execution of CDO and CLO transactions across multiple underlying asset classes and structural types. Dagmara holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She is based in New York.

Cécile Mayer Lévi joined Tikehau Capital in 2013 as Head of Private Debt activity. She has built a  talented team to become one of the leading players in Europe in private debt, in particular in direct lending and is actively involved with a very hands-on role in closing transactions, chasing  opportunities and monitoring investments. To date, she has arranged over 150 financing transactions and was one of the pioneers of the private debt strategy.

Cécile previously worked at Ardian (formerly AXA Private Equity) where she notably broadened the investment scope to include unitranche debt, with a strong focus on forming partnerships with portfolio companies and Private Equity shareholders. She began her career in 1988 at Merrill  Lynch (Corporate Finance and M&A) in Paris and then in New York. In 1991, she joined Elig, one of the pioneering private equity funds in France. In 2001, Cécile's focus pivoted to mezzanine debt investments, and she was appointed Investment Director at Omnes (formerly CAPE -Mezzanis).

Cécile sits as observer on the board of over 20 companies, where she contributes her 360° view to their management teams across a diversified range of industries. She is also board member and chair of the audit committee of the listed company FL Entertaiment. She is also chair of the Private Debt Commission of the trade association France Invest and is 
leading the initiative to implement ESG ratchets and an impact margin grid in deal documentation. In addition she has been appointed as a board member of France Invest since July 2023.

Cecile is a member of the investment committee of the endowment Alma Mater HEC, a leading European business school, and also Board member of the ACC- Alternative Credit Council in connection with AIMA to cover Private Debt related regulatory and legal evolutions in Europe and worldwide.