The 2024 GLAS Recap: Our Global Events and Initiatives

2024 has been a busy year for GLAS.

We’ve had the busiest calendar of events since our inception in 2011, and our global team have actively participated in countless events and conferences around the world, and internally, we’ve had fun with many activities to support local and international charitable initiatives.

The year began with the GLAS SAS team heading to Cannes for the 10th annual IPEM Conference, one of Europe’s largest private capital events, to showcase our growing portfolio of expertise alongside our new partners, Pristine.

Continuing into February, the GLAS Americas team, including Luke Russell, Head of Business Development, Americas, Yana Kislenko, Head of Business Operations, and Arbri Shameti, Senior Business Development Associate, attended the 2024 Turnaround Management Association’s ‘Distressed Investing Conference’ in Las Vegas. As ‘Elite Sponsor’ of the event, our Founder and Group President, Mia Drennan, also joined the team.

In March, the GLAS Americas team flew south for the IJGlobal LATAM 2024 in Miami, and April was notable for the launch of our Madrid office, with a GLAS team from across EMEA attending the launch party alongside many of our clients from southern Europe.

On the other side of the world, the GLAS Australia were joined by many APAC clients over a GLAS-branded coffee, as part of our sponsorship of the KangaNews ‘Debt Capital Markets Summit’ in Sydney.

May saw the GLAS Americas team attended the 3rd Annual DealCatalyst ‘Private Credit Industry Conference’ in Fort Lauderdale, followed by the joint LSTA and Loan Market Association (LMA) Conference later that month in New York.

A team from across Europe, alongside our Founder, Mia and Head of Business Development, EMEA, Deion Fox, visited Barcelona for the ‘Global ABS Conference.’ This was the first conference the GLAS team had attended since launching our operations in Spain, and presented a great opportunity to introduce our expertise in the region.

June was another first for GLAS, as we attended our first on-the-ground conference in the Middle East in June, with our Head of Business Development, UK, Oliver Pawsey, and Senior Transaction Manager, Marco Thuo, attending the ‘Bonds, Loans and Sukuk Middle East Conference’ in Dubai. In London, our Head of Client Services, EMEA, Manuj Sharma, also spoke at the LMA Loan Operations Conference in London.

We headed to another ABS Conference later in the year, as the GLAS and WATIGA teams attended the ‘ABS Asia 2024’ Conference in Hong Kong, with teams from London, Sydney, Brisbane, and Singapore flying the flag for GLAS and WATIGA. Matt Richards, the Founder and Managing Director of WATIGA, also had the opportunity to speak on the ‘Direct Lending Market in Asia’ panel at the conference.

The GLAS US team flew to Mexico City for the American Bankruptcy Institute’s ‘Latin America Symposium’, and later in the month, the European sales team exhibited and sponsored the ‘LMA Loan Markets Conference’ in London, followed by a GLAS-hosted evening cocktail event in Westminster.

In October, the GLAS Americas team went to Philadelphia for the TMA ‘Annual Conference’, and our Frankfurt office held their 2nd Annual GLAS Credit Connect, which was a huge success. In Southern Europe, Daniel García, Head of Business Development, Spain and Bibi Najmiddin, Business Development Associate, travelled to Italy for the Inspiratia ‘Investing in the Energy Transition’ Conference in Milan.

Our senior leadership team from London also flew to New York for the Houlihan Lokey ‘Global Business Services Conference’, with our Founder Mia, delivering a session on GLAS’ journey and our expertise across debt administration and trustee services.

November included the DDC ‘Investor Summit’ held in Athens, where Mia took to the stage once again, this time speaking on the developments and innovation within the services market. 5600+ miles away in Singapore, our APAC team alongside WATIGA, attended the ‘Annual Asia Pacific Fund Finance Symposium’ for another successful conference meeting with clients in the region and showcasing the GLAS Group’s extended service offering.

We concluded the busiest year on record for events at GLAS in December, with the GLAS US team exhibiting at and sponsoring the Global Banking & Markets ‘Bonds, Loans & ESG Latin America Conference’ in Florida.

But it wasn’t all corporate events and networking this year.

2024 was also a fantastic year full of initiatives, support for great causes, and lots of physical activity.

Our team in New York, alongside our Founder, Mia, and Chief Commercial Officer, Joanne Brooks, took part in the 12th annual 9/11 Memorial & Museum 5k Run/Walk through Manhattan, with all donations matched by GLAS in support of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

In London, GLAS, and our 5-a-side team GLAS FC, proudly participated in the Fund Finance Association’s NextGen 5-a-side tournament in London. A total of £8,000 was raised to support the mission of providing seriously ill children with fuller, more enjoyable, and longer childhoods.

Throughout the National Walking Month of May this year, the global GLAS community covered hundreds of miles across four continents to raise money for a charity close to our team’s heart – Cancer Research UK.

On to the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, the world’s largest corporate running event, where both our London and Frankfurt offices formed company teams and completed the 5.6km run in an event which was full of friendly competition between our teams, our clients and our network in the two cities.

For this year’s World Mental Health Day, our worldwide offices organised several initiatives to raise awareness about workplace mental health, help employees de-stress, and raise funds for a great cause.

These initiatives included a bake sale to support the Mind charity, a mindfulness session led by coach María de Mena, and mental health walks in which employees enjoyed delicious food and bonded with colleagues creating a day dedicated to relaxation, connection and conversation.

Throughout November, our teams in London, New York, Singapore, and Sydney participated in Movember, growing moustaches of all shapes and sizes, to raise funds for men’s mental health. Alongside our team’s fundraising efforts, GLAS were pleased to match the donations raised by our organisation, doubling the support for this important cause.

As the year draws to a close in December, the festive period saw the GLAS teams celebrate the holidays together. GLAS employees also dressed up in their best Christmas jumpers and donated money to the Crisis charity – marking a very merry GLAS Christmas in our offices around the globe.

As we come to the end of 2024 with a bigger GLAS team than ever before, we’re looking forward to taking on more initiatives as a team and expanding our network at the world’s biggest and best conferences once again next year.

With our new presence in the UAE, you’ll find GLAS at more events in the Middle East promoting our brand and introducing our wealth of services to those in the region. Following our acquisitions of Pristine and WATIGA earlier this year, we have more team members and a bigger, better service offering – so you can expect to see a lot more from us in 2025, and we look forward to the new opportunities in the European and APAC markets that next year holds.

2024 has been a remarkable year for GLAS, filled with significant achievements and meaningful contributions, and we are sure 2025 will be even bigger!