Julie-Anna Needham Media Consultant & Financial Journalist Independent

Julie-Annais an accomplished journalist who has worked for BBC radio and television, SkyNews, Mergermarket and Dealreporter. 

She has recently established her own podcast production consultancy, producing and presenting branded podcasts for corporate clients, including npower. Alongside her podcast work, she is a regular conference chair and panel moderator.

Brian Wardrop Managing Partner Arx

Brian Wardrop has been originating, executing, monitoring and exiting private equity investments in Central and Eastern Europe ("CEE") since 1997.

Mr. Wardrop is Managing Partner of ARX Equity Partners, which is a private equity firm with a 20-year track record supporting the growth and development of mid-sized companies in select Central European countries. With more than € 300 million raised in four funds, ARX has become a leading private equity firm in its segment in the Central European region.

Prior to joining ARX, Mr. Wardrop was a Principal and head of the Prague office with sector specialist private equity firm, Baring Communications Equity (Emerging Europe).

Mr. Wardrop holds a Master’s degree from Boston University and a Bachelor’s degree from Bishop’s University. He is also a graduate of the Owner/President Program at Harvard Business School.

Mr. Wardrop is also an active supporter of the non-profit social enterprise sector via his roles as a board member of NESst (which is a non-profit organization focused on developing sustainable social enterprises in emerging market economies), and as a member of the investment committee of Tilia Impact Ventures (which is the first fund in the Czech Republic investing in social enterprises).

Krzysztof Kulig Senior Partner Innova Capital

Krzysztof is a Senior Partner and a co-owner at Innova Capital, a leading mid-market private equity firm in Central Europe. He has over 17 years of experience in private equity and capital markets.

At Innova Capital, Krzysztof is responsible for developing investments in financial services and B2B services across the region as well as maintaining relationships with the company’s business partners and LPs and fundraising process for the Fund. Krzysztof has strong experience in European private equity and a proven track record of active engagements in numerous transactions throughout the region.

Krzysztof led or oversaw investments in Polcard, Meritum, Expander, Provus, PEKAES and PeP. He has also sat on the non-executive boards of Neomedic, WP, PEKAES and PeP.

Before joining Innova, he served a position of Vice – President & Managing Director in Euronet Services Poland. He previously worked as a Principal Consultant and Head of the e-business and professional services operations in Heidrick & Struggles.

Krzysztof holds an MBA from the University of Calgary in Canada and graduated from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. Since 2018 he’s been a member of the Polish Business Roundtable (PBR).

Anne Fossmalle CEET/CIS Council Chair, Director, Private Equity Funds European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

Anne Fossemalle has been the Director in charge of Equity Funds at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development since 2009.

Previously, she was the Director, Bank Equity, responsible for EBRD’s direct equity investments in banks. Prior to this appointment in 2007, she was a Senior Banker in the Financial Institutions group, where she led various debt and equity transactions with banks, and was responsible for EBRD’s relationship with international banking groups. She joined EBRD in 1993, as part of the Agribusiness Team, then the Hungary Team, from Natixis in Paris, where she was responsible for loans and equity transactions with large French food companies. Anne holds various Supervisory Board, Advisory Board and Investment Committee memberships.

Anne holds an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University (U.S.A), an M.Sc. from Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (France), an M.Sc. from Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (France).

Przemek Glebocki Co-Managing Partner Mezzanine Management

Przemyslaw is a Managing Director and Head of the Polish office at Mezzanine Management, the first dedicated mezzanine fund manager for Central and Eastern Europe. It manages four funds with total funds under management of EUR 700 million and over 45 investments to date.

Prior to joining Mezzanine Management, Przemyslaw was with Ernst & Young ‘s Corporate Finance and Audit departments. He currently seats on boards of Dominium, PEM, Primocollect, Spearhead, Flucar and Netia.

Paweł Jacel Principal Credit Value Investments

Pawel is Principal responsible for direct lending and private equity investments at CVI Dom Maklerski (CVI).

CVI is leading private debt investor in CEE with more than EUR 1.2bn assets under management and realized more than 530 transaction since 2012

Pawel has over 10 years investment experience and participated in over 20 private debt and private equity transactions.

Prior joining CVI Pawel was working at Krokus PE, a Polish based private equity company focused on mid-market growth transaction. Before joining private equity industry, Paweł gained experience in strategic consulting and investment banking advisory in both Polish and international organizations (Hexagon Capital, Boston Consulting Group and JP Morgan).

Pawel holds a Master Degree in Finance and Banking from University of Lodz and Bachelor of Business from Athlone Institute of Technology (Ireland). He is also CFA Charterholder. 

Jacek Chwedoruk Managing Director, Head of Poland and Co-Head of CEE Rothschild & Co

He has over 20 years of experience in investment banking in Poland and CEE gained in numerous privatizations, M&A and ECM transactions and private placements. He specializes in advisory to financial sector. Jacek Chwedoruk supervised the privatisation of the first Polish companies including the first five companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. He is a founding member of Polish Institute of Directors and a member of the Polish Business Roundtable. He joined Rothschild & Co in 1992.

Oscar Geen Reporter Debtwire

Oscar joined Debtwire in 2019 after working for sister publication Unquote in 2017 as a reporter, focusing on the private equity market in the DACH region. He previously worked for Creditflux as a researcher, focusing on the CLO market.

Oscar graduated from the University of Kent with a Master's degree in political theory in 2015 and spent a year at the Freie Universität in Berlin as part of his undergraduate programme.

Julie-Anna Needham Media Consultant & Financial Journalist Independent

Julie-Annais an accomplished journalist who has worked for BBC radio and television, SkyNews, Mergermarket and Dealreporter. 

She has recently established her own podcast production consultancy, producing and presenting branded podcasts for corporate clients, including npower. Alongside her podcast work, she is a regular conference chair and panel moderator.

Krzysztof Urbański Director - M&A Orange Polska

Krzysztof Urbański graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics in 1996. Since then, his career is devoted to mergers and acquisitions. He spent his first eight years at the corporate finance advisory arm of mBank (Commerzbank Group) and the next three years at Societe Generale.

Krzysztof became Mergers and Acquisitions Director of Orange Polska in 2007 and since then, by completing about 20 transactions totaling PLN 2.6bn, he contributed to Orange Polska restructuring and strategic refocus. His fields of experience include telecoms, but also IT, media, infrastructure, real estate, banking, manufacturing, distribution and others. He holds Supervisory Boards positions at various Orange Polska subsidiaries.

Krzysztof holds a Master degree from HEC, he also completed numerous courses and trainings, including the CFA curriculum in 1999 and INSEAD M&A programme.

Andrzej Bartos Senior Partner Innova Capital

Mr. Bartos joined Innova in 2004 from Allianz Specialized Investments as a Head of Office in Warsaw. Prior to that, he worked in the investment banking and capital markets at the Commerzbank Group and the Polish Development Bank. During that time, Andrzej was involved in scores of IPOs, equity financings, corporate and privatization advisory projects.

His principal area of responsibility is Commercial Manufacturing investments. Due to his extensive experience within Polish public markets, he is actively involved in any transactions involving the public markets. He co-led the investments in EBCC, Fuchosa, Donako, Libet, Trimo and Profim. He was responsible for the successful IPO of ACE on the WSE in 2007.

Mr. Bartos graduated from Warsaw School of Economics, and he holds a number of professional qualifications, including Securities Broker’s license and postgraduate executive training from INSEAD, France. Mr. Bartos established the first Polish Management Buy-Out Club, a gathering of over 70 local executives.

Matthew Quade Managing Director BM&T

Matthew has 17 years of a turnaround, workout and restructuring experience working for a wide range of stakeholders across a variety of industries during a career which has taken him from a ‘Big 4’ accountancy firm to a major international bank, a global consultancy practice and to building his own successful business, before joining BM&T.

As well as having held COO/CRO positions in struggling debtor companies, Matthew has built and led a trans-European workout team for a major international bank as part of a divisional restructure within the bank, so understands the challenges both lenders and their NPL customers face in attempting to preserve, extract & grow value for all stakeholders in different cultures and jurisdictions. Matthew’s experience includes managing turnaround and workout strategies pre, post and involving distressed transactions and he also has experience outside of Europe in the Middle East and USA.

Matthew leads BM&T European Restructuring Solutions’cross-border retail group in partnership with their US affiliate firm Conway MacKenzie. This group has advised and led turnarounds, restructurings and performance improvement projects in a variety of retail businesses in NorthAmerica, the Middle East, the UK, France, Finland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece and the Balkans.

Jonathan Nighswander Partner Schottentor Capital

Based in Vienna, Austria, Jon Nighswander is a partner at Schottentor Capital and a distressed debt investor with over two decades of experience working with lenders and debt-holders seeking to recover value.  Jon began his career in Central and EasternEurope leading privatization and advisory projects in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Balkans.  He subsequently spent a decade as a Managing Director in the US based business advisory practice of a global turnaround management firm, where he advised private equity sponsors and other stakeholders in a number of high-profile restructurings and acquisitions.  In 2011 Jon returned to CEE to join a private equity group acquiring distressed assets in the region, including investments in Poland and Romania.  In 2017 he and a partner teamed up with NewYork-based Chatham Lane Capital to create Schottentor Capital, an alternative asset management platform focusing on distressed debt opportunities in CEE, Spain and Italy. 

Tomasz Kwiecień Member of the Management Board OEX Business Services

Tomasz Kwiecień graduated from Economic University in Cracow. At the beginning of his professional career he worked for Arthur Andersen and then Ernst & Young, at audit and corporate finance departments. Between 2004 and 2014 he was a managing director and country manager at Mezzanine Management, investment advisory firm advising a group of CEE-focussed Accession Mezzanine Funds. In Poland he was responsible for funds’ successful investments in, among others, Solaris Bus and Coach, Lux-Med or Masterlease. Outside of Poland he was responsible for funds’ investments in Jet Finance in Bulgaria or Norican in Denmark. Between 2015 and 2016 he was a Chief Executive Office of Aasa Polska, a fintech company offering consumer finance products. Since beginning of 2017 Tomasz is a board member of OEX, Warsaw Stock Exchange quoted company specialising in modern professional outsourcing services, within OEX’s board Tomasz is responsible for strategy and development.

Julie-Anna Needham Media Consultant & Financial Journalist Independent

Julie-Annais an accomplished journalist who has worked for BBC radio and television, SkyNews, Mergermarket and Dealreporter. 

She has recently established her own podcast production consultancy, producing and presenting branded podcasts for corporate clients, including npower. Alongside her podcast work, she is a regular conference chair and panel moderator.