Meet the Team
After years of close collaboration, we founded QML Solutions in 2024 to bring our quantitative expertise directly to clients. Our partnership is built on decades of experience in quantitative research: building models, communicating them to investors, and producing strategy research. We believe quant research can be both rigorous and accessible, and our goal is to provide insights and tools that are immediately actionable.
Founders
Joey Bortfeld
Joey is a senior quantitative researcher with over 20 years of experience in credit modeling, portfolio analytics, and systematic investment strategies.
He founded QML Solutions following two decades at CreditSights, a global credit research company acquired by Fitch Group in 2021. While at CreditSights, he worked in both the quantitative modeling and strategy teams. His areas of quantitative research have spanned company default risk estimation, systemic risk forecasting and factor modeling in both equity and credit.
Joey completed his undergraduate education at New York University with majors in Economics and Political Science and a minor in Mathematics. He completed the Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF) and obtained a Master’s in Machine Learning from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Kai Gilkes, Ph.D.
Kai has spent the last 25 years leading teams responsible for the development of quantitative models for global credit markets.
He founded QML Solutions after 15 years at CreditSights, an independent credit research firm that was acquired by Fitch Group in 2021. At CreditSights, he managed the quantitative team responsible for the development of credit models for global fixed income markets. He joined the firm after spending two years at DBRS, where he ran a team responsible for the development of quantitative tools for structured credit transactions. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Standard & Poor’s, where he built a quantitative team to support the European and US structured finance businesses.
Kai received a BSc in Physics & Computing from The University of Kent at Canterbury (UK) and then went on to complete a PhD in Physics at the University of Cambridge, funded by the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.
Prior to working in finance, Kai held a research fellowship in Physics at Cambridge University, and lectured in Physics at the University of East Anglia.
Anneli Lefranc-Gilkes
Anneli is a senior quantitative researcher with 15 years of experience developing predictive models and analytical frameworks for credit markets and investment research.
She founded QML Solutions after nine years at CreditSights, an independent credit research firm that was acquired by Fitch Group in 2021. At CreditSights, she developed quantitative models to assess corporate credit quality and to predict default and distress, ranging from individual issuers to market-wide forecasts. Prior to joining CreditSights, Anneli was a quantitative analyst with Corporate Insight’s consulting group, where she built quantitative solutions to advise leading financial institutions.
Anneli completed a BA in Economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Florida with a focus in Econometrics, and received a Master’s in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, with a focus in Artificial Intelligence.
Advisors
Reena V. Mithal, Ph.D.
Reena has spent nearly three decades working in global financial markets, spanning multiple geographies, credit cycles, and asset classes. Over the last ten years, she has focused on investing in early stage companies in India and the US, in the areas of skill development, financial inclusion, sustainability and healthcare. Reena has worked closely with entrepreneurs on impact metrics and sustainability objectives, and in her capacity as both an investor and board member, advised management teams on capital structure optimization, working capital management and business development.
In addition to her diverse investment experience, Reena successfully leveraged her technical expertise as a member of the founding team and Board of Directors at CreditSights Inc, a global credit research company established in 2000 and subsequently acquired by Fitch Ratings. She managed a state-of-the-art business in credit analytics, in addition to providing strategic guidance on portfolio construction and risk management to global institutional clients. She has held senior roles at Putnam Investments, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers where she specialized in assessing value in sovereign, bank, and corporate credit assets across global emerging markets
Reena has been a frequent speaker at impact investment forums and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia Business School. She was Chairperson, Board of Collegiate Charter Schools in New York and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings India. Reena has a PhD in Finance from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and a MALD from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She also has an MA in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a BA from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.
Peter J. Petas
Peter is the founder and former CEO of CreditSights, a firm he grew from eight people in borrowed space into a global leader in independent credit research. Over two decades, Peter scaled the organization to over 250 employees worldwide, building a brand defined by analytical integrity (qualitative and quantitative) and its ability to guide institutional investors through some of the most volatile periods in market history.
Following the firm’s acquisition by Fitch Group, Peter remained CEO, overseeing the integration of several market-leading brands. He led the merger of CreditSights, Covenant Review, Leveraged Finance Insights, and Pacer Monitor, building a unified platform that transformed how the industry accesses credit, news and legal intelligence.
Before launching CreditSights, Peter served as the Chief Strategist for Debt and Foreign Exchange at Deutsche Bank. Prior to that he was a II rated sovereign analyst at Lehman Brothers. He is a graduate of Princeton University, where he earned his degree in History with highest honors.