Mr. Sharad Bajpai is a Partner and Asia Chief Operating Officer in the Ares Credit Group, based in Hong Kong. As COO, he is responsible for leadership and governance oversight of the regional platform, integrating investment and non-investment functions across multiple jurisdictions. This includes strategy, budgeting, fundraising support and pipeline management, as well as oversight of risk management, leverage and hedging, valuation frameworks and core operating functions.

He is a senior investment professional with over 30 years of leadership experience across Asia’s credit and capital markets – spanning origination, underwriting and execution, syndication, recoveries and proprietary investing across high grade, leveraged finance and distressed credit through multiple market cycles.

Mr. Bajpai serves as a Director of Ares Management Asia (Mauritius) Ltd., Ares Management Asia Korea LLC and is a member of Ares’ Special Situations, Secured Lending and Direct Lending Investment Committees in Asia. He also serves on the boards of portfolio companies and Ares fund entities as part of his portfolio management activities, including Bright Step Global, Alpha Capital Partners Group, Petasus Bidco, Siam Power Generation, and Wireless Asset Management.

Prior to joining Ares, Mr. Bajpai was a Managing Director at SSG Capital. Before that, he was a Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong and Singapore, where he led complex recoveries and restructurings, many of which involved negotiations, judicial proceedings and arbitrations across multiple jurisdictions, with a strong focus on turnaround execution and value realization.

He holds a B.E. (Honors) in Civil Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from XLRI, Jamshedpur, India.