September 11, 2023
PPM America, Inc. (PPM) is excited to announce that Ogechi Nwachukwu is transitioning from Head of Fixed Income Research to the newly formed position of Deputy Chief Investment Officer. In this role, he is responsible for ensuring the continuity of the investment practices that have driven PPM’s performance results. Ogechi joined the firm as an analyst in 2001, and his success in that role lead to his promotion to Head of Credit Research in 2018. Overall, he has 26 years of investment experience.
“I am honored to be promoted to Deputy CIO and help lead this team of experienced investment professionals,” said Ogechi. “From day one, my focus has been to maintain the consistent execution of PPM’s investment process on behalf of our clients throughout all our strategies.”
“Ogechi’s demonstrated leadership, temperament, analytical and communication skills are ideally suited for this role. His promotion both strengthens the firm internally and will ultimately deepen our relationships with clients,” said Craig Smith, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer.
Sundeep Mullangi has been promoted to replace Ogechi as Head of Fixed Income Research, a 32 person team covering corporate credit, structured finance and debt restructuring. Sundeep has been a member of PPM’s research team for 21 years and was primarily responsible for analyzing the credit of US banks and brokers, life insurance and P&C insurance companies. Sundeep’s extensive knowledge of the firm’s research processes and portfolio companies that he covered, plus his mentoring of junior analysts, made him the natural choice to lead the team.
Additionally, Brian Manczak has been named Head of Insurance Solutions and is responsible for ensuring that general account portfolios are optimized using all of PPM's investment capabilities. Brian started at PPM 15 years ago as a member of the private placements team before joining the general account portfolio management team in 2019 to oversee the investment grade corporate portfolio. He will also be part of the effort to grow PPM’s third-party business with insurance clients. PPM managed $54.7B in insurance assets as of June 30, 2023.
“The intent of these collective changes is to prioritize the evolving needs and interests of our clients,” Craig Smith added. “With strong leaders working together across our various teams, we feel we are best positioned to serve our investors going forward.”
About PPM America
Our mission is to be seen by clients and their advisors as a consistently reliable partner to help them achieve their long-term value goals.
PPM is a US-based institutional asset manager with $83.51 billion in assets under management as of JUne 30, 2025.* Established in Chicago in 1990, PPM exists to consistently support institutional clients in achieving their long-term value goals. We offer our Midwestern mentality of hard work, straight talk, full transparency and humility. Our success is supported by a team-based culture that encourages debate, collaboration and consistency. At the center of our belief is the fact that our best ideas to date have and can come from any team member anywhere in our firm. We believe the success of our investment culture is best demonstrated by the strong retention of our clients and investment professionals.
* AUM includes committed but unfunded capital for PPM’s private equity and commercial real estate businesses. AUM includes both securities issued by PPM CLO vehicles held by PPM separately managed account clients and the underlying collateral assets of the CLO vehicles managed by PPM.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There can be no assurance that any particular individual will be involved in the management of any portfolio for any period of time, if at all. Furthermore, there can be no assurance that any PPM professionals presented herein will remain with PPM or that past experience or performance of such professionals serves as an indicator of his or her performance. Forward-looking statements are subject to uncertainties that could cause actual developments and results to differ materially from the expectations expressed. The opinions and views expressed herein are not intended to be relied upon as a prediction or forecast of actual future events or performance, guarantee of future results, recommendations or advice. Opinions expressed herein are current as of the date indicated and are subject to change without notice.
