Sengal Selassie

Sengal Selassie is co-CEO and co-Founder of Brightwood Capital, a leading alternative asset manager with $2.25 billion Assets Under Management (as of May 31, 2016). Brightwood exclusively focuses on capital solutions for borrowers in sectors including technology & telecommunications, transportation & logistics, business services, healthcare services, energy and franchising.  Brightwood currently manages a portfolio of over 50 middle market companies that employ a combined approximately 50,000 employees in the United States.

Mr. Selassie serves on the Investment, Executive and Valuation Committees of the firm. Sengal has served on a number of portfolio company boards of directors, including: Poco Graphite, Viawest Internet Services, Ricerca Biosciences, MC2 and Five Star Food Services.

Prior to co-founding Brightwood in 2010, Sengal co-founded Cowen Capital Partners (“CCP”) and served as Managing Partner. At CCP, he successfully led the fund’s spinout from Société Générale, forming Trinity Equity Holdings. Sengal joined CCP from SG Capital Partners (“SG Capital”), CCP’s predecessor fund where he worked from 1998 through 2006. At SG Capital he was a Managing Director and served as group head starting in 2002 and served as President and CEO of the fund’s captive small business investment company, SGC Partners II, from 2002 to 2004. Prior to SG Capital, he worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at Morgan Stanley, specializing in Media and Telecommunications. He began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1990.

Education: A.B. in Economics, magna cum laude, Harvard College; M.B.A. and J.D., with honors, Harvard University