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Our Team

James M. Peterson

Founder & Managing Partner

Prior to founding Nearwater Capital, Mr. Peterson was a Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners where he worked for over 14 years as Head of Origination of Guggenheim Treasury Services.  Prior to working at Guggenheim, Mr. Peterson was a Senior Vice President for Lehman Brothers where he worked for five years, both in London and New York as a banker in ABCP Origination where he structured and launched over 20 conduits for European banks.  Prior to Lehman Brothers, Mr. Peterson was Head of ABS for the Americas for Bayersiche Landesbank, where  he launched and oversaw two ABCP conduit programs with over $15 billion in CP outstandings.

Christopher R. Conetta

Senior Managing Director

Mr. Conetta joins Nearwater Capital with 25 years of experience in Fixed Income Trading and Origination. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Barclays Capital Inc., responsible for the U.S. Rates Cash Trading business, which encompassed U.S. Treasuries, Agencies and SSA’s.  In addition to managing Barclays U.S. Rates business, Mr. Conetta also managed the market-leading short-term Rates and Credit trading businesses at Lehman Brothers and then Barclays, while also being responsible for the Origination of ABCP and unsecured commercial paper programs.

Scott Kimmel

Senior Managing Director & General Counsel

Mr. Kimmel has been a senior counsel in the financial industry with significant experience advising sales, trading and structured finance businesses on a broad range of legal, compliance and regulatory issues.  He was a Managing Director and Head of Legal for the Fixed Income businesses at both Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, with additional responsibilities as chair of committees reviewing new products and transactions.   Most recently, he was Deputy General Counsel at Guggenheim Securities.  Mr. Kimmel has also participated in a number of industry initiatives and programs, and was a member of the Legal and Compliance Executive Committee of SIFMA.

Anthony Bertoldo

Senior Officer

Mr. Bertoldo serves as the Senior Officer of Nearwater Capital Markets, Limited.  Prior to joining Nearwater Capital, Mr. Bertoldo headed Equity Finance, Equity Swaps and Delta One at Mizuho Americas.  Prior to Mizuho, he spent 18 years at Credit Suisse USA, concluding his tenure as co-head of Americas Delta One and Equity Swaps.  Mr. Bertoldo also served as a Bank Examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  Mr. Bertoldo holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from Boston College and a master’s degree from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Andrew Clark
Managing Director,
H
ead of Operations

Andrew Clark joins Nearwater with over 20 years of operations experience across the Americas, EMEA and APAC. Andrew had previously spent 10 years at UBS, where he was global lead of equity operations and middle office and over saw the transition from regional to global reporting, as well as working with sales, trading and structuring on numerous new business initiatives. Prior to UBS, Andrew had worked for US broker dealers including MF Global and Jefferies and Co, Australian investment bank Macquarie Bank and London hedge funds in operations, working with existing businesses and in the creation of new businesses.

Cynthia Daniel

Managing Director,

Risk Retention

Cindy Daniel is a Managing Director in the Risk Retention Financing group with over 25 years of finance experience. Previously, she provided advisory services to some of the largest private equity firms, asset managers and endowments. Prior to that, she was a Managing Director at ZAIS Group and Lehman Brothers where she headed various structured-credit platforms.

Matthew Carpenter

Managing Director,

Risk Retention Financing

Matthew Carpenter is a Managing Director in the Risk Retention Financing group with over 20 years of banking experience. He joined from JPMorgan, where he worked for 21 years. He was promoted to the CLO trading desk in 2006, and in 2018 he took over as co-head of CLO trading globally. Mr. Carpenter is based in our London office. 

Mussayab
Abbas Shamsi

Managing Director

Mr. Mussayab Abbas Shamsi is a Managing Director  responsible for Liquid and Capital Markets business origination based in Nearwater' s London office.  Mussayab brings significant expertise in the structuring and origination of Funding, Liquidity and Capital solutions for Financial institutions globally.  Mussayab spent over five years at Citigroup Equity Structuring where he set up and ran the Capital and Financing Structuring business globally.  Prior to that , Mussayab also worked for over ten years at Deutsche Bank where he held a variety of senior Banking and Structuring roles within the Markets, Prime Finance and Corporate Equity Strategic Transaction business.   Mussayab holds a Masters in Engineering (M. Eng.) from the University of Oxford.     

Robert Pascuzzi

Managing Director,

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Pascuzzi brings more than 20 years of experience leading Finance, Accounting, and Regulatory teams at some of the largest global banks and broker-dealers. Prior to joining Nearwater Mr. Pascuzzi held various senior Controller and Chief Financial Officer roles at Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Citigroup.  In addition to having responsibilities for Financial and Regulatory Reporting at these firms, Mr. Pascuzzi was also responsible for advising their Sales and Trading teams on regulatory and capital implications of new business initiatives as well as the impact of new regulatory regimes, such as Swap Dealer and Security Based Swap Dealer regulations.

Theo Fleishman

Managing Director,

Risk Retention Financing

Theo Fleishman joins Nearwater Capital as a Managing Director with over 15 years of banking experience.  Most recently, Mr. Fleishman was a Director at Natixis where he managed Structured Credit Syndication, primarily focusing on the execution and origination of CLOs, ABS, and CMBS, both domestic and abroad.  While at Natixis, he syndicated over 200 transactions to a global investor base, consistently ranking in the top 10 of the league tables.  Prior to that, he worked out of Natixis’ head office in Paris and spent two years at Morgan Stanley, where he began his career in 2006.     

Ursula Clay

Managing Director, 

Chief Compliance Officer

Ms. Clay joins Nearwater from FINRA where she was a Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff for Member Supervision.  In this role, Ms. Clay advanced Member Supervision’s operational effectiveness and strategic direction, served as its regulatory counsel, and led its Core Functions teams that included policies and procedures, liaison to the SEC and other regulators, and publishing guidance to member firms.  Ms. Clay brings over 25 years of regulatory experience to Nearwater, having held senior compliance roles at Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Exos Securities, practicing securities law at Bressler, Amery & Ross, and managing her own swap dealer consulting business.

Monica Wu

Senior Risk Officer

Ms. Wu brings over 10 years of experience in global financial markets risk management to Nearwater.  Prior to joining the firm, she worked for Morgan Stanley (New York), HSBC (New York and Hong Kong) and Westpac (Sydney).  Ms. Wu’s experience and focus include ensuring that risk management systems and framework are in compliance with regulatory requirements, as well as risk model development and validation, with a view toward applicable regulations.

Adam Wigderson

Senior Director, Rates Trading

Mr. Wigderson brings over fifteen years of fixed income market experience to Nearwater Capital.  Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Wigderson was a senior trader on the US Agency desk at UBS where he focused on providing client solutions through primary and secondary market execution.  Prior to UBS, he held senior trading positions on the US Agency and US Treasury desks at JP Morgan.  Mr. Wigderson began his career as an auditor with KPMG and has held roles at Chase Bank and Barclays Capital.

Kenny Eng

Senior Director,

Project Manager

Kenny Eng joins Nearwater as a Senior Director, Project Manager in our Technology group. He most recently worked at Elequin Capital, a proprietary trading firm, as their Head of Operations. Prior to that, he has worked at AllianceBernstein, the World Bank Group and Angelo, Gordon & Co. on various technology implementations and performance improvement initiatives. He has extensive experience in risk management, operations, middle office and technology as a business analyst, program manager and product manager.

Adam Shuvall

Director

Mr. Shuvall joins Nearwater Capital, bringing over 15 years of fixed income market experience to the trading team.  His background spans across market execution, financing solutions, and balance sheet optimization.  Before joining Nearwater, Mr. Shuvall held multiple positions at BlackRock across Fixed Income trading products.  Earlier in his career, he held trading and support positions at Bank of America and JP Morgan.  Mr. Shuvall graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Economics and Statistics.

Barbara Paciullo

Director, CP Trading/Liquidity Management

Ms. Paciullo joins Nearwater from BNP Paribas where she worked for 16 years in the Treasury department. She started her career in the Milan office (Italy) managing the daily funding and liquidity needs for the branch. In 2015 she joined the US platform and moved to the New York’s office where she was responsible for managing the funding and liquidity requirements of the bank-sponsored ABCP programs. She has extensive and international experience in money market instrument as well as interest rate and foreign exchange products.

Benjamin Biscarrat

Director

Mr. Biscarrat joins Nearwater as a Director in Business Origination.  Mr. Biscarrat joined from Societe Generale where he held roles in Rates Sales and Structuring and Collateral Optimization over the prior 11 years.  He holds a CFA and is a graduate of Boston University and received an MBA from INSEAD.

Brian Kramer

Senior Trader

Mr. Kramer joins Nearwater Capital as a Senior Trader of the Capital Markets business.  Mr. Kramer brings over 21 years of market experience to Nearwater.  He has extensive sales and trading experience across the capital structure.  Prior to Nearwater, he spent the previous 21 years trading Delta One products at Credit Suisse where he was responsible for managing and trading an extensive balance sheet optimization book.

Claudia Quintanilla

Director, Brand Development

Claudia Quintanilla started her career with AIM Fund Services in Houston, TX.  Currently Ms. Quintanilla is Head of Brand Development for Nearwater Capital, where she is responsible for Brand Development, Administration, Commercial Logistics and Operational Efficiency.   Prior to Nearwater, Ms Quintanilla worked at New England Consulting in inside sales and marketing. 

Izabela Olito

Director,  

Accounting/Controller

Izabela manages the accounting and reporting functions for the Company. She joined Nearwater Capital from Miura Global, where she performed Controller functions for the Funds and Management Company. At Miura Izabela was responsible for oversight of accounting and audit, tax reporting, monthly NAV closings, supporting traders and reporting for various groups within organization. Prior to Miura Global Izabela worked at Goldman Sachs Administration Services where she was Senior Fund Accountant and managed accounting for various hedge fund clients.  Izabela began her career in 2005 as an auditor at Ernst & Young LLP within Asset Management Group. Izabela is a CPA licensed in New York and holds BBA in Public Accounting from Baruch College.  

Kristy Giardino

Director, Trade Compliance/Transaction Management

Mrs. Giardino is a Director in our Trade Compliance/Transaction Management group.  Prior to joining Nearwater, she was an Associate Director and Sr. Portfolio Manager for FMS Service Group from 2010-2018 where she issued commercial paper for Kells Funding LLC and managed the daily administration of the conduit.  During her tenor, she also administered a $5 billion Total Return Swap warehouse facility consisting primarily of CLO’s and Student Loans.  Prior to joining FMS-SG, Mrs. Giardino worked for DEPFA Bank plc from 2004-2010 where she was a Jr. Trader for a $25 billion ABCP conduit, Morrigan TRR Funding.  Ms. Giardino began her career at Salomon Smith Barney in 1999 as a trading assistant for Retail Sales and Trading.

Leonard Bernstein

Director,

Application Development

Mr. Bernstein is a Director, Applications Development in our technology group.  He brings over 20 years of software development experience in banking and financial services. He most recently joins us from Jefferies, where he worked in Software Development/ Business Analysis for the Fixed Income front office trading, sales and data governance team.

Michael Lacerenza

Director

Mr. Lacerenza joins Nearwater Capital as a Director for Business Controls with 18 years experience in financial services. Prior to joining Nearwater he worked for NatWest Markets for the majority of his career, most recently as Head of Front Office Controls, Conduct & Supervision, US.  Mr. Lacerenza also has experience in Operational Risk and started his career as a Product Controller supporting both fixed income and commodities at Cantor Fitzgerald and Glencore.

Miguel Franco

Director, Technology

Mr. Franco joins Nearwater Capital as the head of Technology. Mr. Franco has over 25 years of experience in technology within the financial industry.  Most recently, Mr. Franco was with Ziff Brothers Investments where he was the VP of Software and Program Management, responsible for financial systems, software development, IT help desk and program management.

Owen Omoregie

Associate General Counsel

Mr. Owen Omoregie is an Associate General Counsel responsible for legal coverage across Nearwater’ s business lines. Owen brings significant legal expertise in the fields of structured finance, derivatives, and financial regulation. Prior to joining Nearwater, Owen was an Associate in the financial services department of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and a Vice President in the legal departments of Goldman Sachs and Blackrock.  Owen graduated from Cornell University and Harvard Law School.

Paterno (Tino) Luzano

Director, CP Trading/

Liquidity Management

Mr. Luzano was a Director of Short-Term Fixed Income Trading at BoAML from 2007-2014.  While at BoAML, he traded CP and ABCP for over 18 programs with cumulative outstandings of over $50 billion.  Prior to BoAML, Mr. Luzano worked at JPMorgan in Global Treasury where he was responsible for managing the funding and liquidity requirements of the bank-sponsored ABCP programs.  In addition to his experience as a trader, Mr. Luzano has worked in Administration rolls at major conduits for Chase Manhattan and Credit Lyonnais where he gained experience in managing the issuance, liquidity management and administration of  large conduits.   

Rohin Vazirani

Director

Mr. Rohin Vazirani is a Director responsible for ABS Risk Retention.  Rohin brings significant expertise in the fields of structured finance and capital markets. Prior to joining Nearwater, Rohin was Head of Capital Markets at Divvy Homes.  Prior to Divvy Homes, Rohin was a Director at Bank of America on the Cross Asset Structured Solutions team.  Rohin began his career at Morgan Stanley where he spent ten years within the Capital Markets department.  Rohin received his BA from New York University and his MBA from Columbia University. 

Sabina Elizandro

Director, Human Resources

Ms. Elizandro brings over15 years of Human Resources experience in the financial services industry to Nearwater Capital.  Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Elizandro held various senior HR roles, including 10 years at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) as a Global Business Partner.  Ms. Elizandro has been responsible for providing HR solutions for investment, trading,  banking and post trade clients as well as hedge funds and global private equity firms.   

William Yang

Director, Trade Compliance / Transaction Management

Prior to Nearwater, he was a cross asset derivatives structurer at Credit Agricole focusing on structured solutions for corporate clients and institutional investors. Previously, Mr. Yang was with Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets. Mr. Yang holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, and a M.S. in Financial Engineering from Baruch College of the City University of New York.

Christina He

Associate Director,

Treasury

Ms. He is an Associate Director responsible for treasury coverage. Christina has a background in capital and liquidity management.  Prior to joining Nearwater, Christina was a Vice President in the CFO team at Credit Suisse.  Christina graduated from Baruch College.

Kimberly Villanella

Associate Director,

Trade Settlement/

Operations 

Mrs. Villanella joins Nearwater as a specialist in the operations and settlements departments, having worked hands on with a number of assets classes including Equities, Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange and numerous markets, both international  and domestic. She brings years of experience across the whole trade lifecycle and documentation requirements, as well stakeholder management both internally and externally.

Malthi Narayan

Associate Director, 

Operations / Trade Settlement

Mrs. Narayan comes to Nearwater from Dexia Credit Local’s New York office, where she worked for more than 15 years in various settlements and operational roles.  She has extensive operational experience in money market instruments such as CP and CDs, as well as interest rate and credit derivatives and foreign exchange.  She began her career at Fortis Bank’s New York branch where she held as senior roll in derivative operations.

Ms.  Chelala is an Associate Counsel/Compliance responsible for legal and compliance coverage across Nearwater’s business lines.

Emma graduated from Case Western Reserve University and Fordham Law School. While at Fordham, Emma received the Archibald R. Murray Public Service Award, magna Cum Laude and served as an associate editor on the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law. She also participated in Fordham Law’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and served as a State Government Affairs intern at SIFMA.

Emma Chelala

Associate Counsel/Compliance

Nearwater Capital | Specialty Financing Company Based in New York, NY

Emma Deng

Associate

Ms. Deng currently serves as an Associate in the Risk Retention group at Nearwater.  Previously, she was an Associate at Blackstone focused on Direct Lending and Business Development Company activities.  Prior to that, she also worked as a Senior Consultant in the Structured Finance Advisory Practice at Ernst & Young LLP, specializing in CLO.  Ms. Deng holds B.S. and M.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Gaurav Hingorani

Associate, Trade Support

Gaurav Hingorani joins Nearwater with over 8 years of experience across the Americas and EMEA. Gaurav has previously spent 3 years at Millennium, where he was a Trade Support Specialist supporting all Portfolio Managers across all equity and fixed income products with a focus on the build out of an Equity Total Return Swaps infrastructure. Prior to Millennium, Gaurav worked at UBS for 6 years in London and New York where he supported the Equity Swaps Trading desk in a Middle Office capacity before moving to a Trading Assistant role on the trading desk.

William Smith

Associate

Prior to Nearwater Capital, Mr. Smith held various roles within the fixed income market.  Mr. Smith began his career at Standard and Poor’s Evaluations Services where he spent 10 years pricing high yield municipal securities in the healthcare sector.  Mr. Smith also has 13 years of experience within the ABCP market.  The first 10 years was spent at Global Securitization Services where he was the program manager for multiple ABCP programs. The last 3 years were spent at Credit Agricole performing middle office duties for the bank’s Atlantic and LaFayette ABCP programs.  Mr. Smith holds an M.B.A from Long Island University.

Abigail Paholski

Paralegal / Transaction

Support Specialist

Ms. Paholski joins Nearwater Capital as a Paralegal and Transaction Support Specialist. Ms. Paholski has previously worked as a legal assistant and location manager for WeWork.  Ms. Paholski is currently pursuing her Juris Doctorate from New York Law School after graduating from Indiana University.

Crystal Dai 

Accountant

Ms. Dai is an Accountant in our NYC office.  Ms. Dai joins us from Future Fintech Group Inc. where she worked as a Senior Accountant and oversaw daily financial and accounting operations for two subsidiary companies:  a financial technology firm and a hedge fund management company. Crystal has a Bachelor of Management in Accounting from Jimei University and a Master of Science in Accounting from the Frank G. Zarb School of business, Hofstra University. 

Grace Wang

Compliance Analyst/

Paralegal

Ms. Grace Wang is a Compliance Analyst/Paralegal responsible for compliance and legal coverage across Nearwater’s business lines.

Prior to joining Nearwater, Grace was a Senior Analyst in Financial Crime Compliance at Goldman Sachs.  Grace graduated from William & Mary.

Jessica Liu

Analyst, Application Development

Jessica Liu joins Nearwater Capital as a Software Engineer in the technology group.   Ms. Liu previously built full-stack solutions for Tax professionals at KPMG Ignition. Ms. Liu graduated from New York University with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, focusing on software development, data management, and natural language processing.

Jose Xu

Analyst, Application Development

Jose Xu  joins Nearwater Capital as a Software Engineer in the technology group.   Prior to Nearwater, Mr. Xu was a Software Engineer at Credible Labs, Inc.  Mr. Xu is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. 

Malcolm Shure

Analyst

Mr.  Shure joins Nearwater Capital as an Analyst in our Risk Retention team.  Prior to joining Nearwater, Mr. Shure completed a Quantitative Risk Management internship with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Marketing internships with Everyday Health (J2 Global) and Bluecrew (IAC Company). Malcolm holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations with concentrations in Economics and History from Cornell University.  

Matthew Zawaski

Analyst

Mr. Zawaski joins Nearwater Capital as Analyst.  Prior to joining Nearwater,

Mr. Zawaski interned with Greenwich Park Capital Management within Equity Research and with Morgan Stanley on the Wealth Management Virtual Engagement Team.  Mr.  Zawaski holds a B.S. in Finance from Sacred Heart University's Jack Welch College of Business.  

Trey Sinatro

Technology Analyst

Mr. Sinatro is a Technology Analyst based in our NYC office.  Trey's responsibilities include IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and IT support.  Prior to his career in technology, Trey was a Patrol Deputy in the Sarasota, FL Sherriff’s Office.  Trey has a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from the University of Connecticut.  He also holds a Master of Arts in Homeland Security from Keiser University and has received a Cyber Security Professional Certificate from the University of Miami.  

William Badrigian

Operations Specialist

Mr. Badrigian joins Nearwater Capital as an Operations Specialist. Previously, he was a Junior Analyst at Empery Asset Management where he worked extensively with equity and equity-linked securities through all stages of the investment process. Prior to that he graduated from Drew University as a Baldwin Honors Scholar.

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