Aurelien Mali Vice President - Senior Credit Officer, Sovereign Risk Moody's Investors Service

Aurélien Mali is currently Vice President Senior Credit Officer. He acts as the firm’s expert in Africa. His position is a combined lead analyst and analytical outreach/credit ambassador role. As a member of the Sovereign Risk Group since August 2002, he was involved in Moody’s sovereign ratings in Europe and the Middle East at the beginning of his career. Over the last 8 years, he has been at the forefront of Moody’s growing footprint in Africa. He has been sovereign lead or backup analyst for almost all sovereign issuers and multilateral development banks we rate in Africa. Aurelien was relocated to our Dubai office early 2013 from our London office. Aurelien manages a research programme that supports the development of Moody’s reputation for analytical insight and excellence. He also assumes a greater role in participating in regular Moody’s and third-party conferences on the continent, Africa-related investor briefings, and undertaking analytical outreach to inform and explain Moody’s credit judgments. Aurelien also supports other Moody’s franchises using his unique experience and visibility across multiple sectors and asset classes in the region. Finally, he remains the lead/backup sovereign analyst for few countries including Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and South Africa. Aurélien holds a BSc in Economics and a postgraduate degree (DEA) in Money, Finance and Banking from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris.

Ariane Ortiz-Bollin Vice President, Senior Credit Officer, Credit Strategy & Research Moody's Ratings

Ariane leads cross-sector analytic initiatives, strategic research and outreach covering Latin America. She chairs our Latin America Credit Council and works on credit strategy with senior leaders of Ratings & Research and other Credit Strategy & Standards functions within Moody’s. She is tasked with ensuring global analytical consistency with other regional credit strategy functions and foster collaboration across analytical teams. 

Before her current role, Ariane was part of the Global Emerging Markets team, responsible for generating house views and research, and hosted Moody’s Emerging Markets Decoded podcast. 

Ariane spent a decade as a sovereign analyst, managing a portfolio of sovereigns and multilateral development banks in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico, Chile and the International Finance Corporation, leading the internal rating committee discussions for her portfolio of credits, country and region-specific publications, and meetings with government officials.

Before joining Moody’s in 2011, Ariane was a research analyst at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, prior to which she was a corporate credit analyst in Citi- Banamex in Mexico. 

Ariane graduated with Honors in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.

Joanna Fic Senior Vice President, Infrastructure Finance Moody's Ratings

Joanna Fic is a Senior Vice President in Moody’s EMEA Infrastructure Finance team, based in London. She is currently responsible for a portfolio of utilities and transport infrastructure companies in the United Kingdom and Africa, in addition to certain transport infrastructure companies in Norway and Turkey. With extensive credit experience across both the utility and infrastructure sectors, Joanna has a deep understanding of both conventional and complex structured financing arrangements.

Over the course of her career at Moody’s, Joanna has written extensively on transport infrastructure credit, covering airports, ports and toll roads. She has contributed to the development of a number of transport infrastructure methodologies and was the author of Moody’s Rating Methodology for Privately Managed Toll Roads, published in October 2017. Joanna has also published widely on European utilities, including in Germany, United Kingdom and Central and Eastern Europe. A highly regarded analyst and respected commentator, Joanna is a frequent speaker at conferences, investor roundtables and other events.

Prior to joining Moody’s in 2007, Joanna was a credit risk manager at Citigroup in Warsaw, where she was responsible for a diversified portfolio of corporates. Joanna holds a master’s degree in Finance and Banking from Warsaw School of Economics.

Rehan Akbar Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance Moody's Ratings

Rehan Akbar is a Senior Vice President – Senior Credit Officer in Moody’s EMEA Corporate Finance Group based in Dubai. He covers a diversified portfolio including Oil & Gas, petrochemicals, transport and mining companies situated in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2011, Rehan worked as a credit analyst at Mashreq Capital where he covered emerging market corporates. He started his career as a software engineer and technology consultant.

Rehan has a Masters degree in Management Sciences and Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Lahore University of Management Sciences. He is a CFA charterholder.

Mik Kabeya Vice President - Senior Analyst, Financial Institutions Group Moody's Ratings

Mik Kabeya is a Vice President - Senior Analyst in the Financial Institutions Group, based in London. Mik covers financial institutions across the African continent. Prior to relocating to London, Mik was based in Dubai where he covered financial institutions based in the Middle East. Before joining Moody’s, Mik worked at Fullerton Financial Holdings and at BNP Paribas.