Mr. Cwiertnia is a Partner and Head of the Ares Private Equity Group. He serves on the Ares Executive Management Committee. Additionally, Mr. Cwiertnia serves as a member of the Ares Private Equity Group's Corporate Opportunities, Energy Opportunities, and Extended Value Investment Committees and the Ares Credit Group's Opportunistic Credit Investment Committee. Prior to joining Ares in 2005, Mr. Cwiertnia worked in the Financial Sponsors Group at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he focused on providing advisory and financing services to financial sponsors and their portfolio companies. Previously, Mr. Cwiertnia was a member of the Investment Banking Department of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. In addition, he worked at Jefferies & Co. Inc., where he focused on investment banking. Mr. Cwiertnia currently serves as a member of the Boards of Directors for the parent entities of Convergint Technologies, Ryan, CoolSys, Resource Label Group and Automated Industrial Robotics Holdings. He also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Mr. Cwiertnia's previous Boards of Directors experience includes Valet Living, LLC and Insight Global LLC. Mr. Cwiertnia holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of California Los Angeles in Business Economics and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, where he graduated as a Carter Fellow.