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.

Sofia Cerqueira Editor ECM Mergermarket

Sofia is the ECM Deputy Editor at Dealreporter/Mergermarket, where she covers all types of capital markets issuance across major European markets. Her responsibilities include reporting on IPOs, block trades, rights issues and convertible bonds, as well as editing and training other journalists. Sofia was previously a TMT M&A reporter at Mergermarket.

Jens Bauer Investment Director Permira Debt Managers

Qualifications:

Jens holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt and has an MSc from the University of Durham in International and Corporate Finance.

Biography:

Jens joined Permira Debt Mangers in March 2015. His primary focus is on investment opportunities across sectors within Permira Debt Managers.

Previously, Jens worked for Citigroup in the Leveraged Finance team for 2 years. Prior to that he spend 3 years within Citigroup’s Swiss country coverage team focusing on High Yield and IPO opportunities.

Ralph Betz Managing Director, Credit Bridgepoint

Ralph is a Managing Director within Bridgepoint Credit and joined the Firm in 2020 from EQT Credit which was acquired by Bridgepoint in 2020.

Prior to joining EQT in 2014, he was Head of Acquisition in Germany at GE Corporate Finance Bank and Bank of Ireland. He has a wide range of transactional experience in European Leveraged Finance across a large expanse of industries sectors.

Ralph has a degree in Business & Finance from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

Ilya Gertsberg Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Apolis

Ilya Gertsberg is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at Apolis S.A.M. Based in Monaco, Apolis is a single family office whose main focus is private credit. Ilya was previously Director at Millennium Group AG (a family office with over $10bn at its peak), where he was responsible for public, private and fund investments globally, with a particular emphasis on yield generation. Ilya also held investment positions at the Russian sovereign wealth fund (RDIF), Moon Capital Management, Paladin Capital Group and D.E. Shaw. He started his career as an investment banking analyst at Lazard in New York. Ilya studied Economics and Mathematics at Columbia College, Columbia University and Finance at the MBA Program of University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School.

Catherine Ford Consultant Editor Acuris

Catherine Ford is the Editor-at-Large for the events division of Acuris. She is a consultant editor to event programmes, and engaged in the development of timely editorial content for global corporate finance, M&A and capital markets related conferences and events. She routinely moderates discussion panels at conferences across the region. She has worked for Acuris since early 2002, holding a number of senior editorial roles in the company’s European, US and Asia-Pacific head offices.

Marco Superina Head M&A Switzerland and Deputy Head Investment Banking Switzerland Credit Suisse

Dr. Marco Superina is head of M&A Switzerland and deputy head of Investment Banking Switzerland at Credit Suisse. He joined Credit Suisse in 1997.

Raffael Rupprechter Partner, CFO Cross Equity Partners

Raffael Rupprechter is a partner and the CFO at Cross Equity Partners. He has more than 8 years experience in private equity. In his role as Chief Financial Officer, Raffael has overall responsibility for all matters relating to accounting, tax, reporting and regulatory compliance for the Cross group entities. Furthermore, Raffael was involved in several transactions such as the investments in WDM, punker, Rademacher and Micro-Macinazione as well as the divestments of Schwab Verkehrstechnik and spirella. Raffael studied at the universities of St. Gallen (Switzerland), ESADE Barcelona (Spain) and EGADE Monterrey (Mexico) where he obtained a master’s degree in banking and finance as well as a CEMS Master’s in International Management.

Liana Logiurato Partner and Head of Chemicals, EMEIA Transaction Advisory Services, EY

Liana is former Global Head of M&A at Syngenta International AG, having joined in 2010. Prior to that she worked for 14 years in investment banking (i.e. M&A, corporate defence, capital raisings, private equity, project finance) in London, Tokyo, Zürich and New York, primarily with UBS and Nomura, covering a variety of sectors (e.g. chemicals, healthcare, technology, electronics, industrials, materials and transportation). She started her career with a 2-year spell in management consulting / strategic planning. Liana holds an MBA from IMD (Switzerland) and an MSc in Business Administration from Bocconi University (Italy).

Dr. Benedict F. Christ Partner VISCHER Attorneys at Law

Benedict F. Christ, Ph.D., LL.M. is a partner at VISCHER attorneys at law and co-head of VISCHER's corporate/M&A practice group. He joined VISCHER in 2002 and specializes in mergers & acquisitions, banking, finance, contracts and corporate law. Benedict has a wealth of transactional experience and advises regularly on real estate, private equity, structured finance and capital market matters across a broad range of industries.

Catherine Ford Consultant Editor Acuris

Catherine Ford is the Editor-at-Large for the events division of Acuris. She is a consultant editor to event programmes, and engaged in the development of timely editorial content for global corporate finance, M&A and capital markets related conferences and events. She routinely moderates discussion panels at conferences across the region. She has worked for Acuris since early 2002, holding a number of senior editorial roles in the company’s European, US and Asia-Pacific head offices.

Valeria Ceccarelli Head Primary Markets SIX

Valeria Ceccarelli is Head of Primary Markets at SIX, in the Securities and Exchanges business unit. In this function, she is responsible for the origination of new listings (initial public offerings and bonds) as well as for the relationship management with the listed companies.  Valeria has over twenty years of experience in the financial sector. Before joining SIX, she worked for about twelve years in the Investment Banking division of Morgan Stanley in London and Milan where she was an executive director. She worked in all areas of Corporate Finance (M&A, IPOs, bond issues and financing) in different countries and different industries. Subsequently she worked for about three years as Investment Manager at private equity firm Ambienta SGR.  She holds a master degree in Management Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.

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.

Sofia Cerqueira Editor ECM Mergermarket

Sofia is the ECM Deputy Editor at Dealreporter/Mergermarket, where she covers all types of capital markets issuance across major European markets. Her responsibilities include reporting on IPOs, block trades, rights issues and convertible bonds, as well as editing and training other journalists. Sofia was previously a TMT M&A reporter at Mergermarket.