With more than 25 years of experience in the Australian and New Zealand debt markets, Mr. Paphitis has served in corporate and institutional banking and debt advisory roles, providing insightful, independent and valued advice to his corporate and private equity clients across a range of industry sectors and transactions.

Additionally, Mr. Paphitis is a respected thought leader in the region’s private debt market and regularly publishes articles on the growth of private debt, emerging trends and participants and provides the most quoted and published view of the size of the Australian market. His involvement in this sector includes regular presentations for and participation on committees with the Property Council of Australia, the Alternative Credit Council and the Australian Investment Council.

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Paphitis spent 12 years with EY, where he served as the national leader of the Capital & Debt Advisory practice in Australia. In this role, he managed a team that worked with Australian corporates and private equity on their strategic capital and debt funding needs; arranged debt facilities across bank, private credit, asset backed, real estate and leveraged finance markets; and provided valuation advice on a range of debt structures and loan portfolios for banks and private credit investors.

Previously, Mr. Paphitis served with KPMG in Debt Advisory, where he advised clients on their debt financing and refinancing needs, stressed and distressed financing situations and the sale of loan portfolios during the global financial crisis. The first half of his career was spent in the corporate and institutional banking divisions of two of the major Australian banks, where he worked with large corporates across the private equity, industrials, healthcare, real estate, food, agribusiness and financial services sectors.

Mr. Paphitis earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce and an honours degree in law from the University of Adelaide. He is also a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia, where he earned a graduate diploma in corporate finance.

Ken Nguyen is head of Ashurst’s Global Loans & Global Markets Australia team, and a Chambers-recognised member of Ashurst's Band 1-ranked Real Estate Finance offering.

His clients include PERE 100-ranked private credit funds, Australian trading banks (including all four major Australian trading banks), listed and institutional borrowers, and leading real estate developers and investors.

His favourite assets that he has worked on include Gurner / Qualitas's "Beach House" build-to-rent development in Victoria, Golden Age's Ace Hotel development in Surry Hills, Sydney, and Aurora Melbourne Central, the fifth-tallest building in Australia.

He also authors Ashurst's Australian Real Estate Finance Market Update.

Sameer is Head of Pacific Research at CBRE, where he leads the team providing market insights on real estate trends and values. Prior to this, he was Head of Australian Research at Bank of America. Sameer has an MBA from INSEAD and Bachelors of Commerce from ANU.

Sofya Shuster is the Head of Real Estate at ING Australia, leading the expansion of ING’s real estate sector coverage across its Australian institutional client base, including inbound and outbound cross-border business. Since joining ING in 2011, she has held various roles across Amsterdam, London, New York, and Sydney, including senior positions within real estate finance, loan capital markets, and sustainable finance. Sofya is a CFA charterholder and holds a BS in Economics (cum laude) from Lomonosov Moscow State University and an MS in Finance and Investments (cum laude) from the Rotterdam School of Management. Passionate about diversity and inclusion, she serves as a Board Member of the LCU Fund for Women’s Education, a New York-based non-profit organisation. 

Michael has almost 40 years’ experience in all facets of real estate including non-bank real estate lending, real estate investment, funds management and construction.

Prior to founding Madigan Capital in 2016, Michael co-founded Quadrant Real Estate Advisors (QREA) focused on private placement of real estate debt investments in Australia, Europe and North America. Michael was a Board Member, Executive Vice President and one of four Executive Vice Presidents of the Global Investment Committee of QREA. Over his 10 years QREA invested in excess of USD11bn of client capital across multiple geographies.

Prior to QREA, Michael was Group Executive at Lendlease Corporation for more than a decade. During this period he held various roles in Australia, the United States and Singapore.

Simon James is Head of Real Estate (Pacific) for Mercer’s Alternatives business, having joined the firm in 2016. Simon’s responsibilities include portfolio management of the ~$4bn+ Mercer Australian Unlisted Property Fund, and all outbound global real estate investment. Simon is also a member of Mercer’s Global Real Asset Investment Committee.

Simon has in excess of 20 year’s real estate experience, with a focus on management of direct and indirect investments. This experience includes a mixture of property managers and owners, having begun his career in London working for M&G Real Estate (then PRUPIM). Prior to relocating to Sydney in 2016, Simon was the asset manager for the real estate portfolio of the Tesco Pension Fund.

Simon holds a Bachelor of Science from Durham University and a Master of Science (Real Estate) from Sheffield Hallam University, in addition to the CFA UK IMC. Simon is an active member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS), a member of the Advisory Board for the MSCI / Mercer Unlisted PFI; and an active member of the Property Council of Australia where he sits on the Asset Owners Roundtable. Simon also holds numerous global real estate LPAC seats.

Kivanch Mehmet is Director – Treasury and Capital Markets at Metrics Credit Partners. Kivanch has c.25 years financial services experience with the last 20 years dedicated to the real estate funds management industry. Prior to joining Metrics in 2023, Kivanch was previously Head of Institutional Capital at Qualitas and Head of Wholesale Investor Relations at Charter Hall. In addition to having been engaged in CRE capital raising in global roles over the last two decades, Kivanch has also been engaged in the Australian CRE debt sector for over a decade.