Brian Roelke

Chief Investment Officer

Brian leads the investment team at Kuvare. He brings decades of industry experience to the role, most recently as Head of Private Capital at Nuveen/TIAA, where he was also a member of the Board of Directors of Churchill Asset Management, TIAA’s middle market lending affiliate, and Churchill’s investment committee. Brian is a former board member of the Institutional Investors Roundtable, the Private Placement Investors Association, and the SOA’s Private Placement Experience Committee. He earned a BA in history and economics from Colgate University and an MBA in finance and accounting from New York University, where he was a Stern Scholar and a member of Beta Gamma Sigma.

Rachel Hudson

Head of Private Placements

Rachel is the Head of Private Placements at Kuvare. She has 10 years of industry experience, most recently in Private Placements at MetLife Investment Management, where she originated bilateral and club deals and underwrote agented transactions. Prior to that, she worked at J.P. Morgan in Public Finance, where she executed taxable and tax-exempt debt financings. Rachel holds a BA in Mathematics and Economics from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Faisal Kassam

Director, Asset-Backed Investments

Faisal leads the firm’s Asset-Backed investment efforts. Previously at Waterfall Asset Management, he led the origination and structuring of private Asset-Backed debt facilities and special situation private equity investments collateralized by a wide variety of traditional loan and esoteric asset types. Faisal began his career at Guggenheim Partners, where he originated and structured esoteric Asset-Backed securities, executed M&A transactions for specialty finance and fintech companies and invested in special situation aircraft debt and equity transactions. Faisal attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned a BA in Economics.

Grace Kim

Director, Structured Credit

Grace focuses on the CLO investment efforts. She has over 14 years of structured finance experience, most recently at Apollo. Grace began her career at Deutsche Bank where she focused on originating and structuring asset-backed securitizations across various asset classes. Following Deutsche Bank, she worked at UBS within the Structured Credit Products group. Grace attended Columbia University, earning a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

Jason Powers

Head of Credit Investments

Jason is responsible for the private credit, CLO, asset-backed and corporate credit sectors. Before joining Kuvare, he spent 17 years at Wells Fargo Securities, most recently as Co-Head of the Corporate Debt Finance group, where he managed the structured credit and CLO businesses as part of the Asset-Backed Finance unit. Prior to that, Jason worked in the High Yield Special Products team at Banc of America Securities focusing on restructuring advisory services for stressed and distressed high-yield issuers. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of South Carolina.

Tom Shanklin

Managing Director, Head of Corporate Credit

Tom leads the Kuvare Corporate Credit team. He has 25 years of experience structuring and underwriting credit oriented private investments. Most recently, Tom led the development and execution of Nationwide’s Private Debt strategies and was a member of the Corporate Alternatives Investment Committee. He has also held capital markets roles at Deutsche Bank and SunTrust. Tom earned a BSBA from the University of North Carolina and an MBA from Emory’s Goizueta Business School.

Don Haber

Managing Director, Commercial Real Estate Investments

Don heads credit, underwriting and asset management for the commercial real estate investments effort. With over 30 years of varied experience, he previously held senior positions in the commercial real estate groups at numerous financial institutions and publicly-traded mortgage real estate investment trusts, including Lehman Brothers, GMAC-Commercial Capital Initiatives, Barclays, Cantor Fitzgerald - CCRE, Annaly Capital Management, Ladder Capital Finance and Exantas Capital. Don started his professional career as a certified public accountant at KPMG. He is a graduate of The University of Florida, Fisher School of Accounting.

Bob Karner

Managing Director, Originations Commercial Real Estate

Bob heads CMBS and commercial mortgage originations at Kuvare. He has over 30 years of commercial mortgage and CMBS experience. Most recently Bob served at Annaly Capital Management in different roles including heading capital markets, originations and underwriting. He previously served as co-head of the CMBS syndication desk at Morgan Stanley. Bob has a BBA in Finance and an MS in Real Estate from the University of Wisconsin.

Robert C. Restrick, IV

Head of Commercial Real Estate Investments

Bob leads the commercial real estate investment efforts. With decades of industry experience, he was Head of Commercial Real Estate Lending at Sabal, establishing a CMBS platform and brought their first securitization to market. He also served as Head of Walker & Dunlop’s investment management and was CEO for their commercial property funding business. Restrick’s additional experience spans notable senior leadership positions with CreXus Investment Group, Annaly Capital Management's Commercial Real Estate Group, CWCapital Investments, GMAC Commercial Capital Initiatives, Pentalpha Capital, Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley. Restrick has a BA degree in political science and economics from Bucknell University and MBA in finance from Rutgers University.

Enzo Incandela

Associate General Counsel

Enzo is a member of the Kuvare legal team with over eight years of legal experience, most recently as Associate General Counsel at OFS Capital Management. Before transitioning to a legal career, he worked in finance at UBS and Smith Barney (now Morgan Stanley). Enzo earned a JD from Loyola University Chicago, an MBA from DePaul University and a BA in Finance from North Central College.

Ira Kaplan

Director, Portfolio Management

Ira leads the portfolio management initiatives with 25 years of industry experience. He previously managed core credit strategies and asset management relationships at Prosperity Life, was Head of US Admin Re® Portfolio Management, was on the board of directors for Aurora National Life, and was with MetLife's portfolio management unit. Ira is a CFA® Charterholder with an MBA in finance from New York University and a BS in Statistics & Biometry from Cornell University.

Brian Kurtz

Head of Investment Operations & Reporting

Brian leads the investment operations and reporting functions at Kuvare. He has over 16 years of industry experience, most recently as Director of Investment Operations, Reporting, and Analysis at Sammons Financial Group. Previously, he worked at Deloitte within the assurance practice, where he served financial services clients. Brian attended Bradley University, earning a BS in Finance and Quantitative Methods.