People moves and key promotions in securitisation

This week’s roundup of securitisation job swaps sees SMBC hire a new head of lender finance in EMEA, while Mount Street Group and Benefit Street Partners make senior appointments amid a wave of promotions and notable departures across the market.

SMBC has hired Adrian Luput as its new head of lender finance in EMEA, based in London. Luput brings more than 20 years of experience across fund finance, securitisation and derivatives. He joins from Societe Generale where he spent 23 years working in both Paris and London. He most recently served as the head of fund finance team focusing on asset backed loans, subscriptions lines, NAV facilities and CLOs.

In a similar senior hire, Mount Street Group has appointed Neil Odom-Haslett as head of commercial real estate business development, EMEA. Odom-Haslett brings more than 30 years of experience in private credit, with deep expertise spanning CRE lending, infrastructure debt, private corporate debt and fund financing. In his new role, he will be responsible for growing Mount Street’s CRE client base across EMEA, supporting the firm’s continued growth in private credit and real asset servicing. Odom-Haslett joins from Aberdeen Group, where he spent the last 13 years, most recently serving as head of private credit. During his time at Aberdeen, he oversaw the establishment of the business’ CRE lending platform, later expanding his remit to oversee the broader private credit platform, comprising £12bn of AUM. Prior to that, Odom-Haslettheld senior positions at Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (formerly Hypo Real Estate Bank International), where he oversaw its Continental European CRE loan book.

Meanwhile, Benefit Street Partners (BSP) has named Anant Kumar as its newly created global investment strategist, responsible for leading the development of research-driven market insights and content for investors and other key external stakeholders. He will collaborate with the BSP investment teams across all strategies and geographies, as well as the business development, IR, marketing and communications functions, to help investors navigate and understand opportunities in the growing and diversifying global private credit industry. Based in the US, Kumar will remain the firm’s head of credit research - overseeing a dedicated team of over 20 sector-focused analysts - and as a portfolio manager for Franklin Templeton and BSP’s two closed-end interval funds (FBLUX and FBSPX). He joined BSP in 2015, having previously served in the capital markets advisory group at Lazard Freres and in the leveraged finance group at Deutsche Bank.

In banking moves, Pranay Venkatesh has joined JPMorgan Chase as vice president for securitized products in APAC after four years at Kotak Mahindra Bank, where he most recently served as deputy vice president in the structured finance group. Before Kotak, he worked at Oxane Partners on structured debt valuation and modelling, and spent nearly three years at Credit Suisse covering securitized products risk and credit analysis.

Within UK banking, Kieron Redman has been named group treasurer at Shawbrook after close to 10 years with the bank. Since joining in 2016 as a senior treasury analyst, he has moved through a number of treasury and capital markets roles, most recently serving as deputy treasurer and head of capital markets.

On the legal side, Eversheds Sutherland has strengthened its financial services offering with the appointment of Christine Long as a partner in its commercial advisory group. Long joins the firm’s London office from Macfarlanes, where she was a senior counsel advising private capital clients on derivatives, debt trading and structured finance products. She specialises in structuring bespoke, highly targeted solutions tailored to clients’ commercial objectives, such as currency sleeve hedging for credit funds and back leverage using total return swaps.

In asset management, NorthWall Capital has promoted Artem Kontyaev, Scott Carpenter and Garrett Holmes to partner. Kontyaev has been with the firm for nearly eight years and leads deal teams and origination efforts across Western Europe for the credit opportunities and tactical credit strategies. Also serving as acting general counsel, Holmes’ remit includes overseeing the firm’s New York office and investment management, having scaled its legal assets strategy over the past seven years. Finally, Carpenter joined NorthWall as coo in 2024 and has since been instrumental in institutionalising the firm’s operational infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Marketa Ostadalova has been promoted to portfolio manager within the inflation-sensitive group at CalSTRS, a little more than three years after joining the pension fund as an associate portfolio manager. Before moving to CalSTRS in 2023, she spent almost a decade at CalPERS across private equity and real assets roles.

Elsewhere, fiduciary solutions provider VG has appointed Cormac Kissane as a non-executive director, supporting the firm’s plans to establish a presence in Ireland. Kissane brings over 20 years of experience as a partner at Arthur Cox, where he was a capital markets and structured finance specialist. He has advised investment banks, commercial banks, private equity sponsors and corporates on a wide range of complex transactions.

In specialty lending, peer-to-peer lending platform FOLK2FOLK has strengthened its focus on institutional funding with the appointment of Joanna Chan as head of strategic capital. The newly created role will focus on expanding the company’s institutional funding relationships and commercial partnerships, as FOLK2FOLK continues to broaden its funding base and engage with a wider range of capital providers. The appointment reflects a growing emphasis on diversifying funding sources under ceo Kawai Chung, who joined the business in 2025. Chan moves into the position from her previous role as head of portfolio, where she oversaw the management of FOLK2FOLK’s SME loan book and led the firm’s post-completion and recoveries teams. During her six years with the business, she also played a key role in strengthening credit governance, serving on the company’s senior management team, credit committee and risk and audit committee.

Among departures, Viral Shah has left UBS after more than a decade with the firm. London-based Shah exited the bank’s US$60bn platform after 11 years, where he was most recently an associate pm. During his tenure he managed leveraged loan portfolios and high yield investments, having joined as an associate in 2015 before being promoted to vp in 2019.

Also preparing to move, Alex Saporito is preparing to leave One William Street Capital after more than six years at the firm, with plans to begin a new role in August. Prior to joining One William Street in 2019, he was a managing director at Flexpoint Ford and spent more than a decade at Morgan Stanley, where he eventually became managing director.

Separately, Robert Paterson, ABS portfolio manager at CQS is leaving the firm after five years. He joined the firm in February 2021 from Lloyds Bank where he was managing director, head of credit sales since 2016. Over here his responsibilities included account coverage for flow ABS, whole loans, warehouse, SRT and structured repo. Prior to that he was managing director, head of ABS Syndicate at Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets for eight years. He joined Lloyds from Morgan Stanley where he spent a decade in roles including head of European ABS research and later head of US ABS syndicate.

Corinne Smith, Ramla Soni, Jacob Chilvers, Selvaggia Cataldi