Sarah has been the lead analyst for most countries in the European Union, and is also a former lead analyst for the United States. She is currently the lead analyst for France and Italy, among other European countries. She is also one of the Sovereign Risk Group’s global spokespeople. 

She joined Moody’s in 2009 after completing a Sloan Fellowship at the London Business School. Prior to this academic sabbatical, she spent seven years at the Financial Services Authority in London where she headed the regulator’s Risk Analysis area and acted as its chief macroeconomist. Before joining the FSA, she worked in Dun & Bradstreet’s Economic Analysis Group for six years, where she was the organisation’s Deputy Chief Economist. 

She holds an MA in European Studies (with a concentration in Economics and Finance) from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, DC and an AB with a double major in Government and History from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in the United States. She is a CFA Charterholder and is co-chair of the Macroeconomic Committee of the CFA Society France. She is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States and is based in Paris.

Christina Maria Sterr is an Assistant Vice President (Analyst) with Moody’s SubSovereign Group, based in Frankfurt. She is the lead analyst for a number of European subsovereigns, including regional and local governments and government-related issuers, covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. As a member of the SubSovereign Group, she also lends her public finance expertise to a number of research and publication projects.

Before joining Moody’s Sub-Sovereign Group in April 2022, Christina Maria held various analytical and managerial positions in the financial sector. She has an extensive experience from Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Intesa Sanpaolo within the capital markets teams and as a credit analyst for banks, corporates and government related issuers. Prior to that, she had spent several years with Moody´s Financial Institutions Group. She has also participated in capital and debt structuring in collaboration with the DCM and M&A teams. Christina has a consolidated ESG experience having worked closely with issuers for product/project selection, and KPI selection.

Christina graduated in Engineering at the University of Munich and holds a Masters Degree in International Economics and Management at SDA Bocconi.

Swen joined Moody’s Investors Service in August 2010 as a member of the of the Financial Institutions Group. He is the lead analyst for several German, Austrian and Swiss banks.

Prior to joining Moody’s Swen was a portfolio manager and buy- side analyst for global banks and financial institutions with Deka Investment, Frankfurt. He graduated in Business Administration from Goethe University of Frankfurt and is a CFA Charterholder.

Benjamin is a Senior Vice President in the European Insurance team, based in Paris. He has primary analytical responsibility for a number of insurance groups in Europe, covering or having covered insurers and reinsurers in France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Benelux or in the CIS countries. He is also responsible for the analytical team covering insurers operating in the Middle East region. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2006, Benjamin worked for l’Autorité de Contrôle des Assurances et des Mutuelles (the French insurance supervisory authority) and l’Autorité des Marchés Financiers (the French financial markets supervisory authority). Member of French Actuarial Association. Degrees in Finance and Actuarial Science (ENSAE) and Finance and Economics (Ecole Polytechnique). Fluent in French.

Janko Lukac is a VP - Lead Analyst within Moody’s Ratings Corporate Finance Group (CFG), based in Frankfurt. He covers a portfolio of investment grade and high yield issuers along the Oil & Gas and other commodity’s value chains in EMEA and is closely involved in the development and roll out of Moody’s ESG Credit Impact Scores for Moody’s CFG franchise.

He has more than 15 years of experience in corporate and project finance and joined Moody’s in 2013. Janko used to cover issuers across different industrial sectors and also was a lead analyst in Moody’s Sub Sovereign Group responsible for local governments in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Previously he worked at Commerzbank in DCM, Crédit Agricole CIB in leverage finance and in KfW IPEX’s project finance department focussing on thermal and renewable energy.

He earned a banking degree from the German Chamber of Commerce (IHK) before graduating from University of Applied Science Mainz with a bachelor in business administration. Additionally, he did a Master in international relations at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina and at Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil. He speaks fluently German (native), English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Dirk is an Vice President-Senior Analyst in the Corporate Finance Group at Moody’s Investors Service, covering a portfolio  of technology companies including software and semiconductor industries. Dirk joined Moody’s in 2019 from SEB AB in Frankfurt, where he was a Senior Credit Analyst covering customers in various industries including LBOs, project finance and corporate finance. Prior to that Dirk was heading the Financial Institutions Account Management department and has further experience in Trading Capital Markets as Execution Desk for institutional clients as well client relationship management. Dirk graduated from Europäische Fernhochschule Hamburg with a Bachelor’s Degree and holds an MBA from Warwick Business School.