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2026 SPEAKERS
Isidro Fernández is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at 1PLTFRM, where he leads fund/manager selection, due diligence, and platform strategy for a next-generation infrastructure integrating digital-asset and traditional private-markets vehicles. He architects workflows for private equity, private credit, venture, and secondaries, enhancing governance, onboarding, and investor pathways across Reg S, EU, and LATAM frameworks.
Previously, as Director and Head of Alternative Investments at Santander Private Banking International, Isidro directed a US$3B platform spanning private credit, equity, and real assets, modernizing distribution, diligence, and cross-border suitability for UHNW channels.
His origination expertise includes executing private-credit, distressed, and direct-lending transactions at Cross Ocean Partners and Hayfin Capital Management, where he led underwriting, structuring, and portfolio management for southern European deals. He also led a €2.1B CLO platform within a €6B structured-credit operation while serving as Co-Head of the European Division at Halcyon Investment Advisors.
Isidro holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard College, FINRA Series 7 and 65 licenses, and is fluent in English and Spanish. He is a U.S. and U.K. citizen with extensive experience in global wealth and private markets.
Previously, Tim served as chief operating officer at Antares Capital. He was responsible for leading the company’s sponsor coverage and capital markets activities, operations and technology functions, as well as marketing and enterprise risk.
Tim was head of Asset Management for Antares from August 2015 through April 2018. Previously, he was a senior managing director at GE Antares where he was the commercial leader for two joint ventures including the Senior Secured Loan Program and the Middle Market Growth Program. He also led West Coast sponsor coverage activities for Antares and GE from 1996 through 2011, and was a member of the GE Antares Investment Committee. Tim also worked in GE Capital’s merchant banking group and Heller Financial’s corporate finance group. He is a founding partner of Antares.
Tim graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in economics and earned his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Executives’ Club of Chicago and on the Dean’s Business Council at Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Committee. Previously, Mr. Hunt was co-head of U.S Distressed and Par Loan sales at Goldman Sachs.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 2015, Mr. Hunt worked at Citi for 11 years, where he was a director in Leveraged Finance sales. Mr. Hunt is a member of the Board of Trustees of Brown University. Mr. Hunt earned a BA in Economics from Brown University.
Ms. Lamont Svejnar is a Partner in the Ares Secondaries Group, where she focuses on credit secondaries. Ms. Lamont Svejnar serves on the Ares Secondaries Group's Credit Investment Committee. Additionally, Ms. Lamont Svejnar serves on the Ares Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. Prior to joining Ares in 2006, Ms. Lamont Svejnar was an Analyst at GE Capital Global Media & Communications, where she focused on providing debt financing to mid-market media firms. Previously, Ms. Lamont Svejnar participated in the GE Capital Financial Management Program and completed roles in risk portfolio analytics and financial planning analytics. Ms. Lamont Svejnar holds a B.A. from Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business in Finance.
Elizabeth Legunn is a Managing Director in the Ares Credit Group, where she focuses on CLO investments. Prior to joining Ares in 2019, Ms. Legunn was an Assistant Vice President at AllianceBernstein, where she focused on structured credit investing. Ms. Legunn holds a B.A., with distinction, from Amherst College in Mathematics and Economics. Ms. Legunn is a CFA Charterholder.
Mr. Miller is a Partner, Portfolio Manager and Co-Head of U.S. Direct Lending in the Ares Credit Group. Additionally, he serves as President of Ares Capital Corporation, President of Ares Strategic Income Fund and is a member of the Ares Credit Group's U.S. Direct Lending Investment Committee. He also serves on the Ares Sports, Media and Entertainment Investment Committee and acts as a co-lead for the strategy. As part of this strategy, he currently serves as a board member for Atletico de Madrid. He may from time to time serve as an officer, director or principal of other entities affiliated with Ares Management or investment funds managed by Ares Management and its affiliates. Prior to joining Ares in 2006, Mr. Miller was a Vice President at Silver Point Capital, where he focused on building its sponsor finance business, which led the firm's middle market financing and principal investing. Previously, Mr. Miller was a Vice President at GE Capital, where he was responsible for a variety of investing and investment banking services to private equity funds including high yield, bank debt, mezzanine debt and rescue financing. Mr. Miller holds a B.A. from Fairfield University in Economics and an M.B.A. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.
Arlene Shaw is a Managing Director and Treasurer. Ms. Shaw is responsible for structuring and executing collateralized loan obligations, lines of credit and other financing for the firm. Ms. Shaw joined Brightwood in February 2016. Prior to Brightwood, Ms. Shaw was a Senior Associate at Schulte Roth and Zabel LLP in the corporate finance group, where her practice was focused on, middle market credit facilities, acquisition financing and liquidity facilities for hedge funds and private equity funds, including warehouse lines, leveraged finance vehicles, capital call facilities, CLOs and fund-of-fund loans. Ms. Shaw holds a BA, summa cum laude, from the State University of New York at Albany and a JD, cum laude, from Tulane University Law School. Ms. Shaw is committed to philanthropic works and serves on the Water Board for the City of New York Department of Environmental Protection and the board of Inherent Foundation.
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.
Ken is the President and CEO of Churchill Asset Management, an affiliate of Nuveen, the asset manager of TIAA, a Fortune 500 financial services company. He also serves as Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Nuveen Churchill Direct Lending Corp. (NYSE: NCDL) and Nuveen Churchill Private Capital Income Fund (PCAP), Churchill’s publicly registered business development companies. Additionally, Ken is Chairman of Churchill’s Executive Committee and a member of the Senior Lending Investment Committee.
Throughout his over 35-year career in the investment industry, he has accrued a broad range of experience in leading private credit investment businesses. Previously, Ken served as a Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, where he also served as President and a Director of Carlyle Secured Lending, Inc. (Carlyle’s publicly traded business development company). Prior to that he founded and was President and CEO of Churchill Financial Group, served as Head of Leveraged Finance for Royal Bank of Canada and was Head of Indosuez Capital, a leading middle market merchant banking and asset management business in partnership with Credit Agricole Group. Ken was also a founder of the high yield finance business at Chase Securities (now JP Morgan Chase). He began his career in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at Drexel Burnham Lambert. He regularly appears as a guest commentator on private credit markets on Bloomberg, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. In 2023, Ken was named by Private Debt Investor as “One of the 30 ChangeMakers” who helped shape the private debt industry over the past decade.
Ken graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University and a J.D. from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He serves on the Pension Investment Advisory Committee for the Archdiocese of New York, the Board of Trustees and Chairman of the Investment Committee of Canisius High School (a private Jesuit Preparatory school in Buffalo, NY), the Advisory Board of Teach for America (Connecticut), and the Milken Institute’s Inclusive Capitalism Executive Council. Ken is a former member of the Board of Advisors and Adjunct Professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
Fran Beyers, Managing Director, is the Head of Capital Markets at Cliffwater, an investment advisory and asset management firm specializing in alternative investments, including private equity, private debt, hedge funds, real assets, and real estate.
Fran is also a portfolio manager for the firm’s $13.0 billion flagship interval fund, Cliffwater Corporate Lending Fund (CCLFX). Fran is responsible for sourcing middle market lending opportunities and maintaining manager relationships to support Cliffwater’s rapidly growing multi-manager private debt asset management business.
Prior to joining Cliffwater, Fran served as the Head of Analysis for Middle Market Loans at Refinitiv LPC. While in this role, she provided data and analytics on the direct lending market, while also developing innovative web-based products such as Refinitiv’s BDC Collateral, a comprehensive resource for analyzing BDC holdings and performance. Prior to that, she held positions at Churchill Asset Management focused on middle market leveraged financings for private equity portfolio companies. She began her career at J.P. Morgan, with roles including Ratings and Capital Structure Advisory and Credit Portfolio Management.
Fran has been acknowledged as a thought leader for her research, commentary, analysis and data collection for the direct lending and middle market asset class for over a decade and is frequently cited by media outlets.
Fran received her B.S.B.A. from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.
Ian Fowler is the Co-CEO of Corinthia Global Management and is responsible for overseeing the investment team and strategy alongside Adam. Ian is a member of the North American and European Investment committees. Ian was formerly the Co-Head of Barings’ Global Private Finance Group, a member of the group’s North American, European and Asia-Pacific Private Finance Investment Committees, and President of Barings BDC, Inc. (NYSE: BBDC). There he was responsible for leading a team that originates, underwrites, and manages global private finance investments. Ian has worked in the industry since 1988 and his experience has encompassed middle market commercial finance, including originating, underwriting, and managing senior secured and mezzanine loans. Prior to joining Barings in 2012, he was a Senior Managing Director with Harbour Group and co-founded Freeport Financial LLC where he was a member of the Executive Credit Committee and responsible for all business development and capital market initiatives. While at Freeport, he helped build the company into one of the top 5 non-bank affiliated middle market Sponsor finance companies in the U.S. Before Freeport, Ian was Managing Director and Global Group Leader for GE Capital’s Global Sponsor Finance Group. Prior to GE Capital, Ian held various leverage finance and investment positions with NationsBank and Mellon Bank. Ian holds a B.A. (Honors) from the University of Western Ontario and is a member of the CFA Institute.
Jade is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of DealCatalyst, focusing on fostering partnerships with finance industry trade groups to refine their event strategy and offer bespoke event solutions for individual financial services firms.
Jade has 19 years of experience in creating, organizing, and implementing large-scale financial conferences across many time zones and cultures. She produced the largest securitization industry conferences in the U.S. and Europe during her tenure at Information Management Network, a division of Euromoney Institutional Investor, bringing together the key ABS market players to network, learn, and most importantly, transact.
As a seasoned organizer of financial conferences, she set out to reinvent the traditional model of corporate events by co-founding DealCatalyst. Through the application of the latest technology, DealCatalyst helps capital markets stay connected and informed.
Jade is a fan of international travel and cuisine, historic architecture, and a good ghost story.
Erica Frontiero is a senior financial executive and advisor with over 20 years of deal experience in M&A, leveraged finance and capital markets, having raised over $200BN in public and private debt and equity financing, including LBOs and IPOs.
She is a leading expert in direct lending and private capital markets, and has served on several industry boards, numerous panels and as a representative to government and regulatory agencies worldwide. With deep deal acumen, client management, and sales and trading expertise, Erica has also helped build growth strategies and business plans with an eye on driving revenue, costs, regulatory compliance and ESG for financial services businesses.
Most recently, Erica was a Managing Director and the Chief Operating Officer of Carlyle Global Capital Markets and the Head of Capital Solutions, a $60MM business within Carlyle, and previously the head of Debt Capital Markets and a member of Investment Committee for Direct Lending within Global Credit at Carlyle, a $350BN Global Investment Firm. Prior to joining Carlyle, Erica spent 12 years with Antares/GE Capital and began her professional career at Banc of America Securities (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) in New York and London. She honed her corporate communication and negotiating skills working at NBCUniversal in national sales and business development. Currently, Erica serves as a Senior Advisor and Strategic Consultant to fund managers and fund investors, trade organizations, and others, in private capital, including new credit and direct investment product/platform launch and private business CEOs on operational and M&A growth strategy, capitalization and valuation.
Passionate about diversity and inclusivity, Erica has been an active leader in several professional organizations and initiatives driving improvement in gender parity and diversity in finance and was recognized for these efforts as a recipient of the inaugural Women of Wall Street Award in 2019 and a Carlyle DEI Award in 2021 which recognized employees who went above and beyond to contribute to progress in DEI.
In line with that, Erica currently serves on the Board of Directors of Dress for Success, a global charity focused on getting women back to work and is a member of both the finance and strategy committees and served on the succession committee to identity and appoint the new CEO. She served as a member of the Governance Board of the Wall Street Woman’s Alliance (WSWA) a network dedicated to promoting women to c-suite roles. Erica was elected to two-terms of the Board of Directors of the LSTA (Loan Syndications and Trading Association), the leading advocate for the U.S. syndicated loan market, and was a Co-Chair for the Investor Manager Committee for ACC (Alternative Credit Council); a division of AIMA, (Alternative Investment Management Association) the global representative of the alternative investment industry and served as a leading part of the ESG committees of each; helping to establish standardized industry metrics and drive impact.
Erica holds a B.A. in Economics from Wake Forest University with minors in Politics and International Studies and Series 24, 7, and 63 securities licenses. She resides in Manhattan and grew-up in Gloucester, MA.
Mr. Loehrke joined Golub Capital in 2007 and is a Managing Director on the Capital Markets team. He is responsible for structuring, pricing, and syndicating transactions for the Firm. Mr. Loehrke was previously co-head of the Firm’s Broadly Syndicated Loan investment business. Prior to joining Golub Capital, Mr. Loehrke was with GE Asset Management (f/k/a Antares Asset Management), where he handled deal sourcing, underwriting, primary and secondary trading and portfolio management for six CDO vehicles. Before serving in this capacity, he participated in the structuring, underwriting, documentation, syndication and management of Antares’ direct middle market loan transactions. Prior to that, Mr. Loehrke worked at Arthur Andersen LLP in the Transaction Services group. Mr. Loehrke earned his BSA degree with highest honors in Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. He received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Eric Muller shares responsibility for leading OHA’s private credit business and has primary management responsibility for OHA’s BDCs. Prior to joining OHA, Mr. Muller worked in Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division, where he was a Partner in the Private Credit Group, responsible for leading its private senior lending business in North America and managing vehicles that invested across the spectrum of the credit market. He previously worked as a private equity investor for the Cypress Group. Additionally, Mr. Muller serves as a Member of the Board of Trustees for Boston University and on the Investment Committee for the University’s Endowment. He is Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees for StreetSquash, an after-school youth enrichment program. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A., summa cum laude, salutatorian, from Boston University.
Aaron Houlihan advises on investment strategy and leads research and due diligence efforts
across Colorado PERA’s investment programs within the Alternatives asset class, which
currently include active allocations to private credit and real assets as well as legacy exposure to opportunistic investments and hedge funds.
Mr. Houlihan joined PERA in 2017 after working as a Manager of Investments at Catholic
Health Initiatives, where he covered investment strategy, risk management, and portfolio
construction. Prior to CHI, he held public markets and real assets investment roles at
CenturyLink Investment Management and the University of California. He began his investment career in real estate consulting at Deloitte. Overall, he has more than 24 years of investment experience and 28 years of professional experience.
Aaron earned an MBA with a finance concentration from the University of San Francisco and holds a BA in English from the University of Michigan. He has earned the right to use both the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations and is a member of the CFA Institute, the CFA Society of Colorado, and the CAIA Institute.
Kerry H. Pechter, the founder, editor and publisher of Retirement Income Journal, set out in 2009 to provide unconflicted news and analysis to members of the retirement industry. That industry encompasses public and private retirement plans, defined contribution and defined pension plans, individual and institutional products, and the annuity distribution industry, as well as the legal, tech, and advisory service-providers who support them. RIJ appeared weekly from 2009 to 2022 as a digital-only, subscription-based publication distributed by email to more than 7,000 readers. It reappeared as a monthly publication in 2024. A mid-month digital news supplement, Incoming!, was added in 2025.
Pechter is the author of two editions of Annuities for Dummies (Wiley, 2008 and 2023) and a chapter-contributor to The Elgar Companion to Modern Money Theory (2024). He was editor of Annuity Market News (2006 to 2009) and an editor in Vanguard’s individual annuity marketing department (1997 to 2006). His feature articles have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other national publications. A graduate of Kenyon College, he was a teaching assistant in creative writing at Indiana University (Bloomington).
He has twice received National Press Foundation fellowships and attends the annual meeting of the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In recent years, he has studied retirement systems in Spain, France, Israel and Costa Rica. He speaks publicly about annuities at conferences, on radio, as a webcast host and as a podcast guest of Morningstar's Christine Benz and others. He is writing a book about the disruption of the life insurance industry over the past 40 years.
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 Oppenheimer Funds.
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
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.
Tod Trabocco is a Managing Director on the Client Solutions team at Marathon Asset Management. Based in New York, he joined the firm in 2024. Tod has a M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University and a M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. He previously worked at Aksia, ITE Management, Cambridge Associates, Kayne Anderson, CIFC, Moody's Investors' Service and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Fun Fact: Tod holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
As Founder and Managing Partner of TPG Angelo Gordon’s middle market direct lending business, Twin Brook Capital Partners, Trevor Clark is a member of Twin Brook’s Investment Committee and has been responsible for overall operations of the business since its inception in 2014.
Prior to founding TPG Twin Brook, Trevor was a co-founder and C.E.O. of Madison Capital Funding LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of New York Life Investments, where he oversaw all operational and strategic activities of the middle market lending operation. Prior to forming Madison Capital, Trevor held various positions in loan underwriting and origination at Antares Capital, GE Capital, and Bank of America. He holds a B.A. degree from the University of Iowa, Iowa City and an M.B.A. degree from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Leslie Falconio joined the Chief Investment Office within UBS Wealth Management in 2014. Ms. Falconio is Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income Strategy and serves on the Investment Committee. Prior to joining UBS, Ms. Falconio co-ran the derivative desk at the Seaport Group, she also spent several years as a portfolio manager at hedge funds such as Soros and Graham Capital management. Earlier in her career she was the lead portfolio manager at OppenheimerFunds and MetLife managing Securitized product. She is a frequent guest various media outlet such as Bloomberg, CNBC, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Ms. Falconio holds an M.B.A. in Finance and Corporate Accounting from The Simon School at the University of Rochester and a B.S. in Finance and MIS from the University of Buffalo.
Kristine Jurczyk joined Vista Equity Partners in 2013 and founded Vista Credit Partners.
Kristine is a member of the VCP Investment Committee and leads VCP’s structured products and fund financing efforts.
Prior to Vista, Kristine was a Team Leader at Antares Capital, the former middle-market sponsor finance platform of GE Capital. Kristine was previously at Merrill Lynch Capital before its acquisition by Antares. At Antares and Merrill Lynch Capital, Kristine managed all facets of the deal process from origination, underwriting and structuring to portfolio management of credit facilities to sponsor-backed companies across a diverse set of industries. Before Merrill Lynch, Kristine worked at Arthur Andersen in the Transaction Advisory Group, where she performed accounting and financial due diligence analysis on behalf of private equity firms.

