Professor Susana Hidvegi, Colombia

Judge Hidvegi took office Superintendent of Bankruptcy Proceedings in Colombia (Chief Judge of the Business Bankruptcy Court of the entire country of Colombia) in December of 2018. Mrs. Hidvegi is the Delegate to represent the Republic of Colombia at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law – UNCITRAL– Working Group V (Insolvency Law).

 

Mrs. Hidvegi has been a professor of bankruptcy law in several postgraduate programs at Universidad del Rosario, Universidad Javeriana, Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Sergio Arboleda and Universidad del Norte. She has participated in more than 30 national and international conferences as lecturer and panelist on insolvency, and has published several papers and articles on bankruptcy law.
 

Professor Sheila Neder, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Department of Commercial Law
Assistant Professor
•    Ph.D. (University of São Paulo, 2009)
•    Assistant Professor (part-time) since 2013

Rosa M. Rojas Vértiz, RMRV Consulting, Mexico

Rosa is an attorney with expertise in Insolvency law. She consolidates solid experience in cross-border Insolvency, restructurings, business reorganizations and corporate legal counselling with litigation in commercial and constitutional challenge proceedings. She is a transactional lawyer that combines private practice in Mexican law firms with professional experience in the Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico. 

Allen Wilen, INSOL Fellow, EisnerAmper, USA

Allen Wilen is a Partner and serves as the National Director of the Financial Advisory Services Group. In this role, he leads a team of over 100 professionals dedicated to assisting the firm’s clients through the litigation and restructuring process. Allen provides forensic accounting, valuation and litigation support services specializing in the areas of distress, debt restructuring, and business disputes. In addition, he provides analysis of insolvent and troubled companies, provides advice in turnaround and crisis situations, counsels purchasers in the acquisition of assets within the bankruptcy arena, and provides expert advice to parties in civil matters. He has more than 20 years of financial and accounting experience in both national and regional public accounting firms.

Moderator: Pedro Jimenez, Paul Hastings, USA

Pedro A. Jimenez is a partner in the Restructuring practice of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm's New York office. Mr. Jimenez focuses his practice on cross-border bankruptcy and restructuring matters in Asia and Latin America and has actively participated in a number of high profile bankruptcy and restructuring matters, including Avianca Airlines, AeroMexico, LATAM Airlines, Cal Dive, Chrysler Corporation, Dana Corporation, General Maritime, Grupo Isolux, Lyondell Basell, Omega Navigation, Overseas Shipholding Group, Spansion Corporation, and Takata Corporation.

Mr. Jimenez has extensive cross-border experience in advising clients on global restructurings, Chapter 11, and Chapter 15 cases. His out-of-court and in-court company representations span across multiple industries including, automotive, entertainment and media, manufacturing, insurance, and energy. Most recently, Mr. Jimenez represented Maxcom Telecomunicaciones and PT Arpeni Pratama Ocean Line, two foreign issuers of U.S. bonds, in their prepackaged cases under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, and is also part of the teams in sovereign restructuring matters including Puerto Rico, Trinidad Petroleum, and PDVSA.

Mr. Jimenez has lectured and authored numerous articles on cross-border insolvency matters and is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Bankruptcy Institute, and INSOL International.

Hon. Judge Shelley C. Chapman, US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York

Shelley C. Chapman was sworn in as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York on March 5, 2010. At the time of her appointment, she was a partner in the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in the Business Reorganization and Restructuring Department, where her practice included the representation of debtors, creditors, and other parties in interest in major chapter 11 cases and out-of-court restructurings. Prior to joining Willkie Farr in 2001, Judge Chapman was a partner at Sidley & Austin. Judge Chapman currently presides over the Lehman Brothers chapter 11 and SIPA proceedings, and has presided over many other chapter 11 mega-cases and chapter 15 cross-border proceedings, including Boston Generating, Innkeepers, Ambac, LightSquared, Sbarro, NII Holdings, Sabine Oil & Gas, Cumulus Media, Toisa, and Nine West

Leyza Blanco, Sequor Law, USA 

Leyza F. Blanco, a shareholder at Sequor Law, focuses her practice on a wide range of litigation and insolvency matters, including debt restructuring and representation of creditors, with special emphasis on complex business bankruptcy and commercial litigation matters.

Prior to joining Sequor Law, Leyza was a shareholder at an Am Law 200 firm. Additionally, she was appointed receiver, custodian, trustee and special master in cases in both federal and state courts throughout the state of Florida and has served as a neutral arbiter in an arbitration proceeding. Leyza is also a Florida Supreme Court Certified Civil Mediator.

Her case experience includes acting as lead U.S. counsel to various court-appointed fiduciaries named in multiple jurisdictions throughout the Caribbean for British American Insurance Co., Ltd., in Chapter 15 proceedings, district court proceedings, and pending state court proceedings throughout the state of Florida.

Leyza currently serves as the Secretary of The Florida Bar’s Business Law Section, and as the Finance Director of the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation. She is past chair of the Bankruptcy/UCC and Diversity Committees of The Florida Bar’s Business Law Section, and a past president of the Bankruptcy Bar of the Southern District of Florida. Leyza launched a bankruptcy clinical program at Florida International University College of Law, where she served as lead adjunct professor. She is a published author and sought-after leader who is regularly invited to present on topics related to her practice.

Juan José Perojo, Deloitte, Mexico

Juan José es el líder de la práctica de Value Creation & Restructuring Services en México. Tiene más de 12 años de experiencia en asesoramiento a empresas en procesos de crisis empresarial, de deuda y en estrategia.Ha ayudado tanto a grupos corporativos como a inversores en procesos de reestructuración.

Adicionalmente ha participado en varias emisiones de deuda y capital, en la recuperación y creación de valor a través de revisiones independientes de negocio y en asesoramiento a la supervivencia de grupos con presencia internacional.

Su experiencia incluye:
•    Liderazgo de la gestión de crisis de liquidez para un negocio de construcción e infraestructura, desarrollando e implementando mejoras de flujos de caja que generaron un excedente de más de £300m, utilizados para reinvertir en el negocio y reducir el apalancamiento financiero.
•    Liderazgo en la restructuración Financiera y Operativa de un negocio global de servicios profesionales como Director de Transformación.
•    Procesos de M&A de sociedades en distress.
 

David Rosenzweig, Norton Rose Fulbright, USA

David Rosenzweig joined the New York office in 1990 and practices in the area of bankruptcy, reorganization and creditors' rights.

Mr. Rosenzweig handles transactional, litigation and advisory work related to chapter 11 cases, non-bankruptcy workouts and restructurings and commercial finance transactions. His experience includes cross-border insolvency proceedings, property acquisitions and dispositions including the purchases of substantially all of the assets of chapter 11 debtors, structuring transactions to minimize the risks associated with future insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings, defense of avoidance actions such as fraudulent conveyance and preference actions and rendering bankruptcy opinions in connection with securitizations and other financings.

He has broad experience representing secured and unsecured creditors, committees, trustees, debtors, equity holders, landlords and purchasers of assets in chapter 11 reorganization cases and non-bankruptcy workouts and restructurings.

Mr. Rosenzweig's recent clients include energy, trading and manufacturing companies, aircraft owners and financing parties as well as real estate and equipment financing companies.

Alejandro Sainz, Sainz Abogados, Mexico

Alejandro Sainz was the founding partner of Cervantes Sainz which was spined off into Sainz Abogados. He chairs the restructurings and insolvency practice area and is a member of the Finance, Compliance & Investigations, and Mergers and Acquisitions practice groups at Sainz Abogados.

He has more than 30 years of experience advising and representing clients in the practices of cross-border Insolvency and Restructurings (out-of-court & in-court – concursos mercantiles), Finance, Refinancing and Corporate Reorganizations, as well as in the purchase & sale of assets in special situations and distress. Throughout his vast experience, he has represented clients from various industries, both nationally and internationally, domestic and foreign companies, public and private, as well as several ad-hoc committees of international bondholders and noteholders issued abroad by Mexican issuers.

Moderator: Samuel Aguirre, FTI Consulting, Brazil

Sam Aguirre specializes in debt restructuring advisory in the Americas. Mr. Aguirre has restructuring experience in Latin America, focusing on turnaround plans, advising parties on consensual restructurings and providing interim management services. He has industry expertise in construction (cement, tiles and ceramics, steel and plastic), oil, gas and electricity (generation and distribution), media (cable TV and newspaper), automotive and food retail.
Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Mr. Aguirre was a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Corporate Recovery area. Mr. Aguirre trained in Canada and gained significant experience in bankruptcy proceedings (receiverships, reorganizations, and bankruptcies), out-of-court restructurings and operational restructurings. He has participated in aggregate debt restructurings in excess of USD$60 billion. Mr. Aguirre also has provided litigation support services and acted as an expert witness in U.S. court.

Mr. Aguirre's recent engagements include an $800 million debt restructuring for San Antonio Oil & Gas; a $22 billion debt restructuring for Cemex, a Mexican multinational building materials company; a $700 million debt restructuring for Nemak, a global automotive parts manufacturing company; an $800 million debt restructuring for Lamosa (tile and ceramic); a $700 million debt restructuring for Gruma, a multinational corn flour and tortilla manufacturing company; a $260 million debt restructuring for Trinidad Cement Limited; a $3 billion debt restructuring for Mexican hypermarket group Comercial Mexicana; a $250 million debt restructuring for Tuscany Drilling and a $200 million debt restructuring for Carpathian Gold.

Andres Martinez, INSOL Fellow, World Bank Group

Andres F. Martinez is a senior financial sector specialist for the World Bank Group’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice. Since 2011 Andres has been advising several countries on debt-resolution reform, including on insolvency systems and debt recovery in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

In his current position, he leads the dialogue with several governments on technical issues related to debt resolution and insolvency.

Andres is a lawyer by training with over 15 years of experience and a Magister in corporate law. He joined the World Bank Group in 2008 to lead the Insolvency indicator of the World Bank-IFC Doing Business project.  
Before joining the World Bank Group, Andres worked as senior associate at the restructuring and litigation department of a top Argentine law firm in Buenos Aires for over 6 years, where he advised clients like Citibank, Visa, Unilever and other large domestic and international corporations in secured transactions, debt enforcement, restructurings and liquidations.

Santiago Pardo, MAN GLG, UK

Santiago Pardo is a portfolio manager in the credit investment team at Man GLG. He joined Man GLG in May 2019.
Between 2006 and 2016, Santiago was a portfolio manager in the Special Situations and Corporate High Yield groups at Ashmore Group, responsible for distressed credit. He joined Man GLG from Abraaj Group, where he helped launch a global emerging markets credit fund as a portfolio manager in credit strategies. Earlier in his career, Santiago held investment banking roles in New York at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Salomon Brothers.
Santiago holds an MBA from Harvard University.

Jaime Robledo, Brigard Urrutia, Colombia

Lawyer from the Universidad de los Andes with Master of Laws (LL.M) from Columbia University. As a member of the Corporate/M&A team, he advises clients in a wide range of topics related to business law and the acquisition and sale of companies including corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, commercial law, among others. He has advised strategic investors and private equity funds in the acquisition and sale of companies and in the negotiation of shareholders' agreements in different areas of industry and services. He has advised governmental entities and buyers in privatization processes under Law 226 of 1995.