Brandon Sedloff and Allison Davi sit down at the IPEM Global Private Markets Conference in Paris to discuss Davi's role as co-COO at Benefit Street Partners, a specialized alternative credit manager operating within Franklin Templeton's platform. Davi shares her unconventional path from aspiring Broadway performer to investment banking at Lehman Brothers, then private equity, before joining BSP fifteen years ago when the firm managed just $3 billion in assets. Today, BSP oversees $97 billion across strategies spanning direct lending, CLOs, real estate debt, and structured credit, with operations spanning the US, Europe, and Asia.

They discuss:

• Why BSP declared 2026 "the year of building" for AI adoption and eliminated ROI assessments to drive experimentation across the organization
• How BSP restructured its AI approach from a centralized team to democratized usage, including mandatory training, internal competitions, and a scoring system that tracks adoption
• The three phases of private credit's evolution and why diversification beyond core direct lending is driving demand for asset-backed lending, real estate debt, and infrastructure strategies
• BSP's positioning as a core middle market lender in the US and lower middle market specialist in Europe following its acquisition of Apera
• The proliferation of fund structures from simple onshore and offshore vehicles to complex multi-vehicle architectures including evergreen structures and insurance-rated notes

This episode offers operational leaders and private credit professionals insight into building scale while maintaining specialization in alternative credit markets.