Richard J. Byrne has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of FBRT since September 2016. Mr. Byrne is also the President of Benefit Street Partners and is based in our New York office. Mr. Byrne has served as the President of the Advisor since 2013. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer and President of Franklin BSP Lending Corp. since 2016, and Franklin BSP Capital Corp. since 2020, which are affiliated non-traded business development companies regulated under the Investment Company Act of 1940 that are managed by the Advisor.
Prior to joining BSP in 2013, Mr. Byrne was chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. He was also the global head of capital markets at Deutsche Bank as well as a member of their global banking executive committee and global markets executive committee.
Before joining Deutsche Bank, Mr. Byrne was global co-head of the leveraged finance group and global head of credit research at Merrill Lynch. He was also a perennially top-ranked credit analyst.
Mr. Byrne earned a Masters of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts from Binghamton University. Mr. Byrne is a member of the board of directors of Wynn Resorts, Limited (NASDAQ: WYNN), and New York Road Runners. He is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of KASAI Elite Grappling Championships.