JD joined Deutsche Bank in 2017 and runs sales and distribution for Deutsche Bank’s Strategic Investment Group (SIG) in Asia. Over the past seven years, the team has been involved in multiple landmark transactions across the region with JD taking responsibility for managing the relationships that the SIG has with co-investors and partners relevant to those trades. SIG has a broad mandate which spans special situation direct lending, trading secondary distressed debt and fund and portfolio financing. The team has a proven track record of working with partners to source risk, invest, drive outcomes and effect profitable exits from trades.

He writes a regular market commentary which serves as a window into what the team is focused on and where there might be investment opportunities. Reach out if you’d like to be on the distribution for that.

Maggie Cui is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Restructuring & Turnaround in Shanghai. She focuses on financial advisory, corporate restructuring, cross-border transaction advisory, and distressed exits/closures for clients expanding internationally or investing into and out of China.

Ms. Cui brings 30 years of experience across mainland China and Australia. She has advised on several of the country’s largest and most complex restructuring mandates, including co-leading the multijurisdictional restructurings of China Fortune Land Development (one of China’s largest property-sector debt resolutions) and HNA Group (a landmark conglomerate restructuring involving hundreds of entities and international creditors). Ms. Cui’s sector experience spans real estate, mining, and infrastructure, and she maintains an active network within the Asia–Pacific private equity real estate community.

Prior to joining A&M, Ms. Cui most recently served as Reshaping Results Leader with EY China after leading its Strategy and Transactions mining sector practice in China. Before that, she served as China Business Leader for Victoria with EY Australia. Ms. Cui’s earlier roles with EY China also include Head of Real Estate for Greater China.

Ms. Cui earned a bachelor’s degree (with distinction) in business (minor in accounting) from Charles Sturt University. She is a qualified Chartered Accountant (CA) and member of the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ). She is fluent in Mandarin and English.

Lei ZHU is the Head of Asian Fixed Income. Lei has over 18 years of global and Asian fixed income portfolio management experiences and over 21 years of industry experience. In this position, Lei provides strategic direction and leadership for Fidelity’s Asian Fixed Income business and managerial responsibility for the fixed income portfolio management team.

Before joining Fidelity in January 2023, Lei spent over a decade at Credit Suisse Asset Management in Singapore and Hong Kong, where she was most recently Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income Asia. As a founding member of their Asset Management Asian fixed income business since 2012, she took the lead role in building out the firm’s Greater China capabilities and helped to establish the franchise’s Singapore-based capabilities. She was a senior portfolio manager for Emerging Markets, Asian USD corporate, and Asian local currency bond portfolios and funds, as well as served as a member of the Emerging Markets Strategy Group. In addition, Lei managed portfolios with a focus on both onshore and offshore renminbi bond markets in China. Her investment expertise has earned her several Lipper Fund Awards for Asian fixed income strategies in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Lei began her professional investment management career in 2007 at DBS Bank in Singapore. She was a manager for global USD credit and Asian fixed income portfolios at the bank’s Treasury Investments Department which was responsible for the management of the bank’s excess liquidity and shareholders’ funds to generate absolute returns in a broad range of asset classes globally. Prior to this, Lei held various roles at DBS Bank and Ernst & Young.

Lei holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and is also a CFA charterholder.

Jason Phillips (Singapore) joined KKR in 2018 and is a Director on the Asia Credit team. He is responsible for the Asia Pacific Sponsor Finance business and the Australia and New Zealand Credit business. Prior to relocating to Asia Pacific in early 2023, Mr. Phillips was a senior member of the US Corporate Private Credit team in New York. Before joining KKR, Mr. Phillips was an associate on Deutsche Bank’s private credit team in both New York and London. Mr. Phillips holds a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University.

Sophie Lyall is a partner in White & Case’s Greater China Financial Restructuring and Insolvency practice, based in Hong Kong. Her practice spans high-stakes cross-border restructurings, complex out-of-court workouts, liquidations, receiverships and multijurisdictional enforcement.

In 2026 alone, her lead partner mandates include the landmark US$11.9 billion restructuring of Chinese property developer Logan Group and the US$2.2 billion restructuring of Redco Properties. She also advised the liquidators on the US$2 billion offshore bond restructuring of Tsinghua UNIC, through a liquidator-led Scheme delivering a blended cash recovery of 94% to bondholders. In addition, she is currently advising a prominent cryptocurrency exchange on its restructuring to be implemented through one or more Schemes. 

Beyond headline restructurings, Sophie advises on contested liquidations, distressed asset recoveries and sophisticated enforcement strategies involving complex security and intercreditor arrangements. Known for her energy and commercial instinct, Sophie cuts through complexity, brings people together and gets difficult deals done for companies, banks, credit funds and insolvency practitioners across both North and South Asia. Her numerous industry recognitions include Legal 500, Chambers and the Global Restructuring Review.