NYC Private Debt Conference: Summit w/ Multiple Panels (IN-PERSON)

Chase Stuart is a partner in Ice Miller LLP's New York office, where he represents private equity funds, independent sponsors and family offices, and operating companies. Mr. Stuart provides strategic and legal advice in connection with a variety of corporate transactions, including leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, early and late stage private equity and venture capital investments, and secondary transactions.

Mr. Stuart began his legal career in the New York office of Skadden Arps in its Mergers and Acquisitions Group.

Specialties: Mergers & Acquisitions; Private Equity

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Claudine Cohen oversees an integrated team of transaction, valuation, restructuring, project finance, and dispute resolution professionals serving clients throughout the lifecycles of their businesses. With specific expertise in managing opportunities and roadblocks that can impact a business moving forward, Claudine and her team help clients achieve optimal outcomes in protecting and growing stakeholder value.

Dan is a Partner at Garnett Station Partners. Prior to joining GSP, Dan was a Partner and Co-Head of Consumer & Retail at Comvest Credit Partners. He served as a member of the Executive Committee and Investment Committee and played an instrumental role in growing the firm’s AUM from $250M to over $12B during his 13-year tenure. Prior to Comvest, Dan was a Senior Director at Dymas Capital, an affiliate of Cerberus, which he joined at inception and grew to be a leading sponsor finance platform with $3B AUM. Prior to Dymas, Dan spent time at Arthur Andersen, Heller Financial, and Salomon Smith Barney early in his career. Dan received an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Lou is a serial entrepreneur with extensive private equity transaction experience. He is the founder of multiple entrepreneurial ventures in the technology arena, and has unique expertise in operations management, strategic partnerships and new business development. He is a former consultant who has advised many companies in the healthcare management, finance, and technology industries on improving operations and corporate strategy.
Lou is the founder of professional networking organization Opus Connect, and is an active member in numerous nonprofit organizations [including FIDF, AIPAC and JNF]. He is a member of the Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle and is Wexner Heritage Fellow.

Mr. Grutman is a founder of Middlemarch Partners and co-leads the firm’s merchant banking and investing efforts. He has spent his entire career investing and advising high-growth financial services, business services, and environmental services companies that leverage technology to create sustainable advantage.

At Middlemarch, Mr. Grutman advises clients on business and capital strategy issues, has sourced over $1.5B of capital for clients and serves as a board member for a number of Middlemarch clients and portfolio companies, including Prepaid Ventures. He has deep domain expertise in the specialty finance, transaction processing, and outsourced tech-enabled business services sectors where he has been exceptionally active both as a merchant banker and as a private equity investor since 2002. Active with both private and public companies, he has participated in over $4.5B of transactions over the course of his career as a merchant banker and private equity investor.

Prior to founding Middlemarch Partners, Mr. Grutman served as a Partner at TH Lee Putnam Ventures, a $1B growth equity fund, where he co-led the firm’s financial services investments in specialty finance, insurance services, and electronic capital markets companies. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Citigroup where he oversaw the firm’s on balance sheet financial services private equity holdings as well as managed the bank’s $6 billion private equity fund-of-funds business. He has also held private equity investment roles at Goldman Sachs and Frontline Capital. He began his career at The Boston Consulting Group in its Financial Services and e-Commerce Practices.

Investment professional with direct investment experience in public and private equity and debt.

Specialties: Advanced accounting and finance; corporate valuation

Mr. Fischer joined Crestline in 2021 and is a Business Development Managing Director in the Fund Liquidity Solutions Group. Mr. Fischer has 17 years’ experience in business development and alternative investments. Prior to joining Crestline, he was Director of Business Development at BDO for the Southwest Region Private Equity Services Group and a Regional Director of Business Development for Great American Group, a B. Riley Financial company. Earlier in his career, Mr. Fischer co-founded an alternative investment firm, NBM Group, and was a trading manager at Traditum Group, focused on interest rate strategies. He is the current President of the Secured Finance Network Southwest Chapter. He graduated with a BS in Biology from Boston College.

Carrie DiLauro joined HRCP in 2009 and oversees all operations management, administrative functions, investor relations, and marketing initiatives. She brings over twenty years of experience in organizational processes, data-driven system improvements, fiscal responsibility, and global manufacturing. Prior to joining HRCP, she was a fund administrator at a bio-tech hedge fund. She began her career running production for textile manufacturing facilities around the world. Carrie received a B.S. from Cornell University and a Master of Liberal Arts, Finance from the Extension School at Harvard University.

Collin joined RF Investment Partners, LLC as a Managing Director based in our Chicago office. Collin is responsible for identifying new investment opportunities, evaluating and structuring new transactions, and working alongside RF’s management team partners to drive growth.

Prior to joining RF, Collin was a Principal with Lake Capital where he was responsible for originating and evaluating potential investments, structuring transactions, leading due diligence, negotiating agreements and working with existing portfolio companies. Prior to joining Lake Capital Collin worked in the investment banking division of J.P. Morgan where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, equity offerings and debt financings in diversified industrials, consumer, and building products industries.

Collin graduated with high honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earning a BS in Accountancy with a concentration in Finance. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Managing Partner & Founder of Hark Capital. He leads all aspects of Hark and chairs its Investment Committees.

Prior to founding Hark, Doug was a Managing Director at Barclays and Lehman Brothers covering financial sponsor clients. Prior to that, he worked at Credit Suisse and JP Morgan.

Doug received an A.B. from Princeton University and a M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Ed Zhu has been working in the financial industry since 2013. Ed began their career at Morgan Stanley as a Capital Markets professional, and then moved to A-CAP in 2016. At A-CAP, Ed has held the roles of Head of Private Credit, Portfolio Manager, and Associate Portfolio Manager.

Ed Zhu completed their education history with a Bing Overseas Studies program at the University of Oxford in History and Philosophy. Ed then attended Stanford University, earning a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) with Honors in Economics and a Master of Science (M.S.) in Financial Mathematics.

Mr. Chang is a Founder and Partner of Velocity Structured Solutions and has over 20 years of experience as a principal making credit investments across a broad array of asset classes, including senior and unitranche debt, with an emphasis on mezzanine securities. Mr. Chang was previously a Managing Director with ORIX Leveraged Finance in New York, where he led the direct sponsor coverage team and was responsible for originating and executing senior and junior credit investments. Prior to joining ORIX, he was most notably a founding member and partner at both PennantPark Investment Corporation and Audax Mezzanine. He began his career as an investment banker with The Argosy Group, which was later acquired and became the CIBC Leveraged Finance and Merchant Banking group.

Mr. Chang graduated cum laude with an AB from the Government Department, with a focus on Political Philosophy and Economics, at Harvard University.

Mr. Chang has served as an Observer to the Board of Directors of numerous private companies.

Mr. Harrison is a co-Managing Partner of LO3 Capital. Glenn has sourced, structured and/or managed more than 70 private debt investments over his 20+ year career and has deployed nearly $850 million of capital into the lower middle market. Prior to Live Oak, Glenn was a Partner at Praesidian Capital, where he was on one SBIC license and either sourced or was on the investment committee for nearly 40 platform investments which represented approximately $400 million of capital investment. Mr. Harrison has been on multiple portfolio company boards and served as CEO for several portfolio companies. He is also an active member of the New York City chapter of the Alliance of Merger and Acquisition Advisors (“AM&AA”) and has served on its board since 2016. Glenn received his B.A. in Economics with High Honors from Rutgers University

Jack is responsible for originating new investment opportunities across all industries for Comvest’s direct lending strategy.

Prior to joining Comvest, Jack was a Director at Group1001, where he helped oversee the origination, structuring and execution of middle-market direct lending and specialty finance investments. Before that, he was an Associate at Citi in the Credit Opportunities Group (formerly the Global Special Situations Group), where he focused on U.S. and cross-border middle-market lending.

Jack received an M.S. in Management Studies from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Javier is a Principal at o15 and is primarily responsible for originating and executing private credit & equity investment opportunities, as well as portfolio management.

Prior to joining o15, Javier was a Vice President at Truist Securities where he held various roles including Healthcare Services industry coverage, M&A, and capital markets transaction origination and execution. Javier also had responsibility for structuring and underwriting credit products for Private Equity leveraged buyouts across the Healthcare industry while at Truist Securities.

Prior to Truist Securities, Javier held roles at Boyne Capital, CVS Health, and BMO Capital Markets. Javier received his BS in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Jeffrey Marcus is a Managing Director at Silverpeak Credit Partners. Prior to joining Silverpeak, Jeffrey was a credit trader and analyst at Five Island Asset Management where he focused primarily on North American High Yield and Leveraged Loans. Before Five Island, he was at Barclays for six years both on a proprietary trading desk, as well as at Pomelo Capital, a hedge fund that was spun off from Barclays. At Barclays and Pomelo, Jeffrey focused on fundamental corporate credit, capital structure arbitrage, and event driven strategies utilizing various debt and equity instruments. Prior to Barclays, he spent time at Citi and Morgan Stanley with various roles in investment banking, portfolio management, and credit arbitrage. Jeffrey holds a B.S. in Finance and Economics from New York University’s Stern School of Business and also spent a year studying economics and finance at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ken is the founder and President of Newpoint Advisors and has 25 years of executive leadership experience in stakeholder communication. He has worked with clients in a variety of industries in over 150 engagements. Ken regularly takes on profit and loss and risk-management responsibility for cash-constrained companies in growth, leveraged-buyout and turnaround situations. He also has successfully worked on implementing hundreds of initiatives involving, operations and project management, team building, marketing, and sales and joint-venture management. He is a fierce advocate for capital preservation and saving jobs.

Ken is responsible for Optima Group’s consulting practice, working directly with our clients’ management teams to develop new strategies, products, and efficiencies that enhance their ability to compete. Ken has more than 20 years of experience working with leading investment management institutions. Clients seek his counsel in designing and developing programs for retail, institutional, and affluent markets. Ken is a regular speaker and contributor to financial conferences and the press on a wide range of critical issues facing the investment management industry. Ken holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and an M.S. from Yale University.

Ms. Laura Zengilowski serves as Managing Director at Siemens. She served as Principal at Capital Southwest BDC. She served as Vice President at AB Private Credit Investors. She joined AB in 2015 as a Vice President of AB Private Credit Investors, where she is involved in structuring, underwriting and execution, and portfolio management. She was formerly a Senior Associate with Falcon Investment Advisors as well as an Analyst in Deutsche Bank's Leveraged Finance Group. She holds a BS in Business Administration and Accounting, and Politics from Washington and Lee University.

Matt Hays joined Gryphon in 2019 and currently serves as partner and the company’s first Chief Revenue Officer. Matt leads all business development efforts and works closely with senior management to establish strategic revenue goals and provides actionable plans to drive growth across the firm. In addition, Matt manages Gryphon’s political risk, business intelligence, due diligence and other investigative offerings in Asia.

Prior to joining Gryphon in 2019, Matt was based in Bangkok, Thailand for the International Republican Institute, where he served as country director for their Thailand and Malaysia programs. In this capacity, Matt advised political parties and elected officials throughout Southeast Asia to strengthen their communications, constituent engagement and policy development.

Matt holds a master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a B.A. in History from American University.

Morten is Senior Managing Director of Corporate Development at VION Investments. He is responsible for expanding VION’s client relationships and product offerings across the industry to originate and help structure new opportunities. Morten is also involved in helping direct VION’s strategic vision.

Morten has more than 25 years of experience in financial services and restructuring and distressed industry. His previous roles include senior positions at Rise Line Business Credit, an asset-based lender; SFNET, a finance industry association; and over twenty years with SB360 Capital Partners, an equity, debt, and recovery solutions provider to retail and consumer products companies. Morten has also held positions with a merchant banker and fundraising consulting firms.

Morten holds an MSc in International Marketing and Finance from the University of Strathclyde; a BBA in Economics, Finance, and Marketing from Bishop’s University, and a CICBV, Certified Business Valuator from Schulich School of Business – York University.

Paul Schapira, CTP is a Regional Managing Director for Newpoint Advisors Corporation. He has nearly 30 years of experience in commercial banking, mezzanine lending, turnaround management, workout, and private equity. As a private equity investor, Paul closed more than 50 deals totaling $250 million in enterprise value and generating aggregate returns in excess of 25%.

Based in the Greater Detroit market, he currently helps lower middle market companies by providing turnaround management services including performance improvement, financial restructurings (along with sources of debt/equity), and crisis management services. Paul partners with key stakeholders and management to optimize and enhance performance, preserve capital, and save jobs.

Paul holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. As of 2024, Paul is accredited as a Certified Turnaround Professional through the Turnaround Management Association.

SLR Digital Finance is a wholly owned subsidiary of SLR Business Credit. We provide flexible ABL and Factoring facilities to emerging media, advertising, and tech businesses as small as $100k up to $100MM.

Sean Holland’s responsibilities at New York Life include manager research, due diligence and risk oversight across a spectrum of investment strategies including credit and fixed income. Prior to this role, he worked as a principal for Comave Advisors. Previously, Sean served at the NYSTRS pension.

His experience includes asset allocation, portfolio construction and risk management spanning many asset classes globally including alternatives and direct investments.

Sean’s background includes originating, structuring and managing private credit investments as well as sourcing, selecting and monitoring private credit and fixed income fund managers at leading investment firms. Sean began his credit career at J.P. Morgan Chase structuring and pricing high yield bonds and loans in New York and London.

Sean has a CPA, B.S. in accounting from Babson College and an M.B.A and M.S. in risk management from NYU-Stern.