Senior Partner

Mr. Cwiertnia is a Senior Partner in the Ares Private Equity Group.  Mr. Cwiertnia joined Ares in 2005 from Credit Suisse First Boston where he worked in the Financial Sponsors Group providing advisory and financing services to financial sponsors and their portfolio companies.  Prior to CSFB, Mr. Cwiertnia was an investment banker with Jefferies & Co. Inc. in the Leveraged Finance Group primarily focused on high yield financings and restructurings.

Mr. Cwiertnia currently serves on the Board of Directors of Kinetics Holdings, LLC, Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corporation and Stream Global Services, Inc.  Mr. Cwiertnia also serves on the Investment Committee, Finance Committee and Board of Governors of The UCLA Foundation which manages approximately $1 billion of endowed assets.

Mr. Cwiertnia graduated magna cum laude from UCLA with a BA in Business Economics and received an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management graduating as a Carter Fellow.