Speakers
Discover this year’s leading speakers taking the stage.
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Alex van Hoek is Lead Partner for European Private Equity at Apollo.
Alex joined the firm in New York in 2010 and since 2021 has been based in London, overseeing the Firm’s efforts in various sectors in Europe, including Consumer, Retail, Hospitality, Leisure, and Transportation and Logistics. Alex has been involved in various private equity transactions including EVRi, The Restaurant Group, The Travel Corporation, Ingenico, Great Canadian Gaming, The Venetian, Hilton Grand Vacations, Diamond Resorts, Constellis, Caesars Entertainment, Aliante Casino, and Quality Distribution. Alex currently serves as a director of EVRi, The Restaurant Group, The Travel Corporation, Ingenico, Great Canadian Gaming and One Toronto Gaming.
Prior to joining Apollo, Alex was an Analyst in the Financial Sponsor Investment Banking group at Deutsche Bank. Alex graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a dual BSE degree in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.
Ben leads Shoosmiths’ national Corporate team, which advises on M&A, private equity and venture capital transactions. He works closely with high‑growth businesses, entrepreneurs and private‑equity‑backed corporates across sectors including technology, consumer, financial services and national security.
Since joining Shoosmiths in 2013, Ben has led on complex cross‑border transactions and strategic restructurings. Recent highlights include advising the shareholders of Fosroc on its $1bn+ disposal to French industrials group Saint‑Gobain, Heligan Private Equity on its investment and fundraising programme, and household brands such as Waterstones and Peloton, as well as a US‑listed software business, on UK and cross‑border acquisitions.
Christian has more than 20 years of experience in private equity and business transformations across Europe. He held Senior Managing Director roles with a leading global Private Equity House and with an European Private Credit House. Being an operator at heart and by background, Christian held multiple executive and non-executive C-Level roles at portfolio companies delivering carve-outs, build-and-build strategies and strategic transformations. He has been chairing investments such as Office Deport Europe or Getronics. The pursued investment strategy focuses on carve-outs and complex transactional situations requiring to deliver clarity, transaction security and performance improvement to lay the foundation for future growth trajectory.
Christian is fluent in English, German and Spanish. He calls London home.
Head of Leveraged Finance, EMEA – SMBC Group
As Head of Leveraged Finance, Dan is responsible for overseeing SMBC’s leveraged finance and private credit strategies across Europe. The business comprises over 100 investment professionals across four European offices, with $10bn AUM.
Prior to joining SMBC Group in 2015, Dan was a Managing Director in GE Capital’s European leveraged finance business and has 25 years of experience lending to private equity owned companies.
Dr. Stefan Sambol is Founding Partner at OMMAX, where he advises mid- and large-cap Private Equity funds and Family Offices on commercial, digital, tech, data, and AI-driven value creation across transactions, strategy, and portfolio acceleration. He works across industries including Consumer & Retail, Healthcare, B2B Services, and Technology.
At OMMAX, Stefan co-leads the Transaction Advisory team, supporting end-to-end deal processes and post-deal value creation. With over 15 years of experience, he has led numerous digital, tech, data, and AI due diligences and growth initiatives, helping portfolio companies scale through data-driven strategies and AI-enabled business models.
Stefan is a recognized European thought leader on digital transformation and AI commercialization, with publications in Handelsblatt, Capital, Marketing Review St. Gallen, CIO Magazine, and The Times. He advises leading investors such as Advent, EQT, CVC, and KKR.
He holds an M.Sc. in Economics from LMU Munich and a Ph.D. from the University of Bayreuth, focusing on digital transformation and data-driven business models.
Dwayne is Co-Head of EMEA M&A and before that was head of Corporate Finance and M&A for J.P. Morgan Cazenove. He joined J.P. Morgan’s UK M&A Team after graduating from University College Dublin with a joint honours degree in International Commerce and Spanish.
Dwayne was appointed as Staffing Officer for J.P. Morgan's London Advisory Group in 2003, after which he joined the EMEA Healthcare Team, focusing on pharma and medtech coverage in the region. On establishment of the J.P. Morgan Cazenove joint venture, Dwayne re-joined UK M&A running the business until 2019 when he took on his current role.
Dwayne has worked on over $550bn of transactions across a variety of deal types and sizes, industries and geographies.
Hamish Lazell is the Group Strategy Director at Octopus Energy, where he leads M&A and strategic initiatives across the Group. In the past couple of years he has led Octopus's acquisitions of Bulb off of the UK government and Shell's domestic energy supply business which collectively moved Octopus to become the largest household supplier in the UK, as well as led the expansion of the business into over a dozen new markets. Hamish began his career at Boston Consulting Group, advising clients in aviation, technology, finance, energy, and retail. He is passionate about driving sustainable, customer-focused innovation in the energy industry.
Jean is a UK small and mid-cap fund manager at Schroders since 2016. She is lead manager of investment trust Schroder UK Mid Cap plc. Jean joined the City on the Morgan Stanley graduate programme in 1999, earned the CFA designation and became an award-winning sell-side equity analyst. She has also worked for the UK Government, including HM Treasury. Jean is a mathematician by training and speaks fluent French. She was appointed to the Code Committee of the UK’s Takeover Panel in 2024.
Laura joined Federated Hermes in November 2015 when the private credit platform was being established. Laura is the portfolio manager of the third vintage of Federated Hermes’ European Direct Lending franchise, as well as Junior Portfolio Manager of the second vintage. Laura is also responsible for managing the team of direct lending analysts. Laura sits on the Private Debt Investment Committee which considers investments across all direct lending strategies at Federated Hermes Limited. Laura joined from GE Capital, where she was an associate in its mid-market leveraged finance execution team. At GE, Laura focused on arranging financings for European private equity-backed acquisitions funded through senior, second lien, mezzanine and unitranche facilities. Prior to this, Laura worked for three years at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in its acquisition finance team in London, focusing on opportunities in European large-cap leveraged finance transactions and on portfolio management. Her previous role was at Allied Irish Bank in Dublin in its Corporate Banking North America division, in which she analysed US large-cap and middle-market leveraged finance transactions, and performed portfolio management functions. She has an Economics degree from University College Dublin, is a CFA charterholder and holds the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing.
Marc is the UK Head of Integration and Separation and UK Sellside Advisory Lead. He has 25 years of experience in advising clients on delivering successful strategic portfolio change including carve-outs, divestments, acquisitions and Joint Ventures from strategic option support to execution and implementation. Marc has a strong track record of delivering value on complex global transactions across a wide range of sectors including Chemicals, ENR, Automotive, Industrial Markets, TMT, Business Services, Leisure and Private Equity.
Matthew is a senior advisor at Cinven, a senior advisor at Marlborough Partners and a board member, and formerly Chair, of UK Private Capital. Previously, he spent 18 years in senior leadership roles at Cinven, including as Head of Capital Markets and latterly COO. Before Cinven he was in leveraged finance at Merrill Lynch, following a period in investment banking at Schroders.
Nassim Cherchali is the Managing Partner at AnaCap, where he developed the firm’s next-generation platform focused on asset-light services, technology, and software within the financial ecosystem.
Under Nassim’s leadership, AnaCap has successfully executed 100+ acquisitions (platforms and add-ons) and raised over €1bn in capital in the past 5 years.
Before joining AnaCap, Nassim was part of the Financial Institutions Group at Lehman Brothers in London, where he advised clients across insurance, banking, and consumer finance sectors. He graduated from ESCP Europe.
Nicola leads the UK Deal Advisory business and is a Consumer Deals Partner with over 20 years of professional experience, almost exclusively in advising a range of corporate and private equity clients on M&A transactions.
Péter Harbula is Group Head of M&A for SPIE, a Paris listed European Corporate. He is in charge of mergers and acquisitions transactions. After starting his career at Deloitte, Péter joined what would become Edenred (Accor Services) in 2007 and served as Edenred’s Group M&A Director from 2010 to 2022, when he joined the InVivo Group as Group Head of M&A & Integration.
During his 19 years leading M&A transactions at Edenred, InVivo, and SPIE, Péter completed more than 160 deals - including over 120 acquisitions - across five continents and 40 countries, with the cumulative 100% enterprise value of these transactions exceeding €7 billion.
Péter holds a Master of Science from the University of Economic Sciences of Budapest (Corvinus), as well as a Master degree in Financial and Banking Techniques and a PhD in Management Sciences from the Paris II University. He is the author of several published papers in the field of corporate finance and corporate governance and has been teaching corporate finance at HEC for over 20 years.
Rachel is Mergermarket’s co-Head of News, overseeing the publication's private markets coverage in Europe.
Rohit Shiralkar is a Senior Managing Director at Arma Partners which he joined in 2014. He has over 15 years’ experience in technology investment banking, advising on over $50bn worth of global M&A transactions in the technology sector with a focus on Software.
He previously worked for Capital Strategy Corporate Finance, a technology M&A advisory boutique in London, where he advised companies across Software and IT services. He began his career in investment banking with Lehman Brothers in London. He has also previously worked in engineering roles in the US and Asia.
Serge Toppjian is a Managing Director in Brookfield’s Private Equity Group. In this role, he is responsible for leading industrials coverage, deal sourcing and execution in Europe. Mr. Toppjian joined Brookfield in 2013, having worked in Toronto, Sao Paulo and London and on multiple investments in the Americas and Europe. He currently serves on the boards of IPL Schoeller and Unidas.
Previously, Mr. Toppjian worked as an investment professional at a global infrastructure asset manager and began his career as an analyst at a Brazilian investment advisory firm.
Mr. Toppjian holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, having also attended the London School of Economics. He is a CFA charterholder.
Stuart has over 20 years of experience in the European leverage buyout market. He began his career working in the leveraged finance team at UBS, and then spent 9 years in the European mezzanine and private debt group at Barings investing in European middle market credit. Prior to joining Ardian he worked at TSSP, TPG's credit platform, as a Director helping develop its European private debt business. He is based in the London office.
Education: University of Warwick
Suzana Perić is a managing director and Co-Head of Oaktree’s Sourcing & Origination group, where she focuses on private credit sourcing and deal origination across Europe. She joined Oaktree in 2023 from Bridgepoint Credit (formerly EQT Credit), where she was managing director and Head of Origination for the firm’s opportunities fund. In that role, she established and led the fund’s pan-European origination platform. Prior to that, Ms. Perić led Santander’s EMEA Loan Sales team, overseeing transactions across project finance, real estate, leveraged finance, corporate lending, and infrastructure. Earlier in her career, she held roles at HSH Nordbank, Natixis, and Hamburg Hafencity. Ms. Perić holds an M.A. degree in philology from the University of Hamburg and a degree from ESCP Europe Business School (London/Madrid). She is a native speaker of German and Croatian and is business fluent in Spanish.
Tristan Nagler is a Partner and Head of AURELIUS Investment Advisory. He leads AURELIUS’ investment activities in the United Kingdom, Ireland and North America.
After joining AURELIUS in 2014, he played an instrumental role in the successful build-up of the Investment Advisory team in the UK and Ireland. He was responsible for numerous deals, including the corporate carve-outs of Office Depot’s European operations, McKesson’s UK operations and Smurfit Kappa’s solid board operations.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Leeds, an Executive MBA from École des Pontes Business School and a Certificate in International Business from the University of Edinburgh. After his studies, he worked at KPMG in Audit (1998-2001), followed by Corporate Finance (2001-2010) and subsequently the financial services provider Investec for three years.