Judges

Neil Faulkner

Neil is the founder of 4thWay, the ratings and research agency for peer-to-peer and other online direct lending, which has a dedicated investor base deploying £100m. Head of research for over a decade, Neil Faulkner has been consulted by the industry and the Financial Conduct Authority on a variety of topics. He was featured on the Peer2Peer Finance News P2P Power 50 and has been quoted many times in the national press.

Solomon Nevins

Solomon is the founder of The Fund Review, a specialist research firm focused on private market funds. He started his career at AXA Architas where he spent 12 years leading the research into private market investments and managing multi-asset portfolios. Following this, he worked for CCLA Investment Management where he was head of the Alternatives team and managed a £2bn allocation to private markets investments. He is a CFA Charterholder and holds degrees from University of Bristol and UCL.

Aysha Gilmore

Aysha Gilmore is the news editor of Alternative Credit Investor. She is a history graduate with a postgraduate degree in journalism and an NCTJ diploma. Before joining Alternative Credit Investor, she worked for trade publications in the financial sector, including Net Zero Investor and Room151. Prior to that, she gained experience at various local newspapers. Aysha writes the news, features and profile interviews at Alternative Credit Investor, with particular interests in investor allocations, portfolio movements and partnerships. 

Paul Hatfield

Paul Hatfield has over 30 years of experience in international credit markets and was CIO of Alcentra, one of Europe’s leading credit asset managers.  He spent four years in New York running Alcentra’s US business and another four in credit with Deutsche Bank prior to that.  Paul is now chairman and CFO of IBT Technologies, a portfolio optimisation software provider and consults on an advisory basis on credit with several major institutions in Europe and the US.  Paul has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University.

Suzie Neuwirth

Suzie Neuwirth is the founder and editor-in-chief of Alternative Credit Investor magazine, having seen a gap in the market for good quality, focused coverage of the fast-growing alternative credit sector. She is an experienced journalist who has edited the business sections of two national newspapers and worked at London freesheet City AM. She has been interviewed on various broadcasting outlets including Sky News and Share Radio. Earlier in her career, she worked for a number of trade magazines and edited a Middle East-focused insurance publication for two years.

Selin Bucak

Selin Bucak is a freelance journalist with more than a decade of experience covering financial news. She was previously news editor at Citywire Wealth Manager and was editor of Private Equity News at Dow Jones. Freelancing since 2020, she has written for publications including Alternative Credit Investor, Citywire, The Wall Street Journal, Real Deals, Private Equity International, Sifted and The i Paper, among others. 

Christian Faes

Christian is the CEO of investment firm Faes & Co. He is also the CEO of sister company F2 Finance, which is a technology-enabled direct lender providing real estate bridging finance loans across the US.

Christian previously co-founded UK mortgage lender LendInvest, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 and now has over £5bn in funds under management and lends over £1bn a year.

Christian has been actively involved in setting up and building companies such as Onate, which is a lender active in Ireland and Spain; has been an adviser to the UK government on fintech; and now, through Faes & Co., is actively building businesses such as F2 Finance and Petra Loan Servicing.