Money Maze Podcast 193: From Hedge Fund Roots to Alternative Credit Leadership: Soraya Chabarek, President & CEO, MCQS
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Feb 5, 2026 Soraya Chabarek, President and CEO of Manulife CQS and veteran of GLG and Moore Capital, talks about transforming a hedge fund into an institutional alternative credit platform. She covers scaling beyond star culture, building distribution through relationships, risks and opportunities in private credit, AI’s role versus human judgement, and what she looks for in hires.
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From Star Culture To Scalable Platform
- Founder-led, star-centric firms are hard to scale and not repeatable for institutional clients.
- Soraya helped reposition CQS into a diversified alternative credit platform run by many, not one.
Pivot To Multi‑Asset Credit
- Soraya described Mercer prompting CQS to apply hedge-fund DNA to credit, creating the Multi-Asset Credit Fund.
- That product now manages a large portion of their $18.5bn AUM and focuses on income and underwriting.
Underwrite For Cashflow And Liquidity
- Prioritize liquidity and rigorous underwriting when lending in private credit.
- Focus on cashflow, amortization, and avoiding defaults to protect income streams for clients.
