Farshad Mashayekhi, PhD, is a Senior Vice President in Neuberger Berman’s Specialty Finance team. Prior to joining the firm in 2018, Farshad was co-head of Investor Analytics at Lending Club, where he led the analytical support for institutional and retail investors in loans (+10B AUM). Prior to that, he was a managing director in Research and Analytics at BondDesk, where he built and managed the analytics team that utilized data and machine learning algorithms to gain insights, establish novel financial and operational metrics, build products, lead marketing and develop strategies. Farshad holds a PhD in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business and an MS in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.