Karen Ramallo Senior Vice President - Head of US Corporate ABS Moody's Investors Service

Karen Ramallo heads the U.S. Corporate ABS team in the Structured Finance Group at Moody’s Investors Service. The U.S. Corporate ABS team assigns new ratings to commercial and esoteric ABS transactions, covering over twenty sectors including

equipment, wireless towers, fleet leasing, rental car, stranded utilities, tax liens, and aircraft lease, among others.

Previously, Karen acted as a Rating Committee Chair and senior lead analyst for the U.S. Commercial Real Estate Finance group, where she covered conduit and large loan transactions. She also previously held lead analyst positions within the Latin America

ABS and the U.S. RMBS New Ratings teams.

Prior to joining Moody’s in 2005, Karen worked at NorthFork Bank Corp. (acquired by Capital One Financial) as a credit risk officer, where she prepared risk analytics for senior management and determined the quarterly Allowance for Loan Loss Reserves

for the bank’s owned residential mortgage and small commercial loan portfolios.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. She is natively fluent in English and Spanish and conversant in French and Portuguese

Sonny Weng Vice President-Senior Credit Officer, RMBS, Structured Finance Moody's Investors Service

Sonny Weng is a lead analyst in Moody’s Investors Service Residential MortgageBacked Securities Group. Mr. Weng has been primarily responsible for credit risk analysis of structured finance transactions including single-family rental (SFR) and U.S.residential mortgage-backed securitizations (RMBS). Prior to joining Moody’s, Mr.Weng worked at Interactive Data Corporation as a Structured Securities Analystevaluating mortgage-backed securities and HSH Investment Management as a portfolio manager/analyst managing a portfolio of mortgage-backed securities.

Annabel Schaafsma Managing Director, Global Structured Finance Group Moody's Investors Service

Annabel Schaafsma is a Managing Director and Global Head of the Structured Finance Group within Ratings and Research. She is responsible for a global team that both assign primary ratings as well as the surveillance of existing ratings covering all asset types including Asset Backed Securities, Corporate and Residential Mortgage Backed Securities, Structured Credit and Covered Bonds.

Annabel has many years of experience in credit analysis, as well as managing credit professionals. Annabel first joined Moody’s in 2001 in the Structured Finance Group where she went onto leading teams assigning Primary ratings to Residential Mortgage Backed securities and the surveillance of Consumer Asset Backed Securities in EMEA. Prior to her current role she worked in Credit Strategy and Standards Group responsible for the Methodology Development Group. Prior to joining Moody’s Annabel worked for Credit Suisse in the Credit Risk Management department in various roles in London and New York. In 2006 Annabel joined Standard Chartered Bank as Head of Credit Research for the Structured Credit Investment team that invested in structured finance instruments. Before re-joining Moody’s in 2010, Annabel was head of Traded Credit Risk Management for Standard Chartered Bank in London responsible for the identification and analysis of credit risks within the firm’s trading business.

Annabel is passionate about diversity and inclusion; she is the executive sponsor of the Moody’s UK Women’s Business Resource Group. Annabel holds an undergraduate degree in Economics focused in finance and accountancy from Manchester University

Peter Sallerson Senior Director Moody's Analytics

Peter focuses on the CLO market at Moody’s Analytics via the further development of the Structured Finance Portal’s CLO section and related research. 

Mr. Sallerson began his finance career in the Corporate Finance Department at Nomura Securities where he executed numerous debt, equity, and derivative transactions as well as a variety of domestic and international structured financings. At Bear Stearns for 14 years, Mr. Sallerson structured transactions for a variety of collateral types with an emphasis beginning in 1995 on CLOs and CSOs. He was a founding member of the CLO group at Bear. Subsequent to Bear, he ran Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (USA)’s CLO effort and advised its parent (BTMU) on its CLO investment activities for 3 years. 

Mr. Sallerson graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College and his M.B.A. is with honors from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.