Fitch Ratings

Andrew Steel is a managing director of Fitch Ratings and is responsible for Fitch's energy, utilities, and project finance rating services in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa . His group rates issuers in all links of the upstream and downstream oil, gas, and power industries, as well as project finance transactions ranging from hospitals and schools to LNG. Prior to joining Fitch, Andrew was head of ABN Amro's structured industry finance, power, and utilities group for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa . He also worked for Edison Capital Europe as a private equity investment director, for PowerGen plc as a senior project finance manager, and in the banking sector as a mezzanine, leveraged buy-out and cross-border M&A lender. Andrew graduated from The University of Bristol with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology

Brian Coulton is a managing director at Fitch Ratings and is head of EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa ) sovereigns and global economics in the sovereign group. He is lead sovereign analyst for Italy and the other large European economies and co-ordinates Fitch's monitoring and forecasts for the global economy. Brian returned to Fitch's London office in August 2005 following a three-year secondment to Hong Kong as head of Asia sovereign ratings. During this time he established Fitch's Asian sovereign ratings unit and was responsible for regional sovereign credit issues and the agency's ratings of China , Hong Kong , Japan , and the Philippines . Prior to joining Fitch in 1999, Brian was an economic adviser at the UK Treasury in London . Brian has a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Warwick and a BSc from the University of Wales .

John Hatton is a Managing Director in the European Corporate group at Fitch Ratings in London. He is the Credit and Criteria Officer covering European and Asia for Corporates - a new role created in January 2008. Prior to this he was head of the European Corporate's Retail, Leisure and Consumer Products, Transport and Property teams. He has also been involved in many of the corporate and utility securitisations including the water transactions and the Eurotunnel debt repackagings. He has been instrumental in the close liaison between the agency's corporate and various structured finance teams. John has been co-author of Fitch's comments on bondholder documentation provisions including "Jumping the Queue - Ineffective European Bond Documentation Provisions" dated October 2003, "Change of Control - A Rating Agency Perspective" dated October 2006. Prior to joining Fitch in 1996, John worked for a foreign commercial bank for six years primarily lending through the syndication market to various UK corporates and LBO/MBOs.

Erwin van Lumich is a senior director with Fitch Ratings and the deputy head of the energy, utilities & regulation team for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Based in Barcelona , he oversees all aspects of the rating process for a wide range of issuers across the region and coordinates publication of research. Regions of analytical focus include Iberia , the Netherlands and markets that are still at a relatively early stage of development. Prior to joining Fitch in 2000, Erwin worked in London as ratings advisor in Deutsche Bank's global markets division. As part of this role, he guided European issuers, many of which in the energy sector, through the rating process and helped them resolve capital structuring issues. Prior to this, he was a corporate analyst at Standard & Poor's. Erwin is a Dutch national and holds an MBA in economics and management from SDA Bocconi in Milan . He also studied finance in Utrecht and London . Erwin is a CFA charterholder and is fluent in a number of European languages.

Gregg Katz has been active in FSIX since 2002. In 2007, Gregg started planning FSIX events for Chicago. Currently Gregg is an Associate Director at Fitch Ratings in the structured credit group, where he has been for over three years. Gregg has a BS from New York University's Stern School of Business.

Tim Ockenga is a director within the european insurance team of Fitch Ratings and has been with the agency since September 2004. Based in Frankfurt, he is responsible for managing Fitch's German-speaking primary analysis and ratings in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Moreover, Tim is the European insurance representative on Fitch's global hybrid products committee. Prior to joining Fitch, Tim spent two years working for the German state bank Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB). Tim graduated in economics from the Katholische Universitat Eichstadt-Ingolstadt (WFI) with a masters degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in finance and controlling.

Dr. Zhang is the director of Global Quantitative Finance Research at Fitch Ratings, leading the research in the area of credit derivative and structured products. He joined TCFA in 1999 and has since actively participated TCFA activities, including help organizing the 2004 and 2005 TCFA annual conferences and workshops; co-heading the TCFA company gift-matching and volunteer incentive program in the last 2 years. As the treasurer of TCFA, he sits on the TCFA Finance and Accounting committee since 2004. In this role he manages TCFA funds, prepares tax filing and maintains TCFA non-profit status with IRS. Ben has also been unofficial "post master" of TCFA. Going forward, Ben would like to contribute more towards building TCFA regular networking events for members, including blogs, online community and in-person events. Ben holds Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Duke University. Before Fitch, He works at Moody's KMV.