The U.S. Private Credit Industry Conference on Direct Lending

Mr. Robbins is a member of StepStone Private Wealth and focuses on the RIA channel. Mr. Robbins engages with RIA firms that have a national presence.

Prior to joining StepStone, Mr. Robbins served as a Senior Vice President at Neuberger Berman, a $470 billion asset manager that invested in both public and private markets. At Neuberger Berman, he oversaw the firm’s business development efforts with RIA firms and worked closely with those with a national footprint.  Previously, Mr. Robbins was a Director at Lord Abbett, where he worked with RIA firms distributing mutual funds and SMAs. He began his career in financial services at John Hancock on their sales desk in Boston before being promoted to Vice President and managing a territory.

Mr. Robbins received his BS from Babson College.

Mascha Canio serves as the managing investment director of private debt and assumed the role in October 2025.

The program she oversees primarily invests in privately negotiated, non-traded debt-like instruments typically issued to companies. In addition, the Private Debt Program provides other types of financing for the real economy.

Canio is a leader in the private debt industry and has decades of experience managing a variety of asset types on behalf of pension systems. She joined CalPERS after nine years as head of credit and insurance-linked investments at Dutch pension fund service provider PGGM, where she managed assets valued at approximately $17 billion. While at PGGM, she developed a high-performing private credit strategy that has earned international recognition.

In other senior positions at PGGM, Canio managed credit risk sharing as well as infrastructure, private equity, and insurance-linked investments. Her financial expertise was also tapped to shore up financially troubled segments of the Netherland’s economy during the 2008 financial crisis.

Before PGGM, Canio served as head of Europe at Octagon Credit Investors, a U.S.-based manager of collateralized loan obligations. She set up the firm’s European office after it decided to expand into Europe, and managed investments in the European market for leveraged bank loans and high-yield bonds.

Her career began in 1991 at Shell Pension Fund in the Netherlands where she quickly rose through the ranks to become a senior member of the fixed income team. In her role as a fund manager, Canio actively managed a portfolio in government debt, corporate bonds, and emerging markets debt.

Canio earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Nijenrode Business University in the Netherlands.

Patrick McGowan is a Managing Director at Sanctuary Wealth Group, serving as the Head of Alternative Investments and Head of Manager Research. In this role, he spearheads a team responsible for all Alternative Investment activities, including the Firm's private equity, private credit, real asset, and hedge fund investing strategies, as well as the traditional Investment Research Focus List. He is a member of the Sanctuary Asset Management Investment Council, which plays a pivotal role in constructing the Firm's global economic and capital market views and leads the Alternative Investment Committee.

Before joining Sanctuary, Mr. McGowan held a senior leadership position at the GP-stakes arm of Azimut Group (BIT: AZM), one of the largest independent wealth management companies in Europe; Invesco Private Capital (NYSE: IVZ), where he worked on investments for early-stage venture capital funds; the Carlyle Group, in the private credit joint venture OC Private Capital (TAKIX). He started his career at OppenheimerFunds.

Mr. McGowan serves on the Executive Committee and is a board member at the Institute for Portfolio Alternatives (ipa.com). He also serves on the Board of Unifi CAIA.

Patrick earned his Bachelors of Science in Psychological Sciences from Vanderbilt University and completed the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate Business School accelerator MBA. He holds his FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses.