BlackRock Capital Investment has appointed Michael Zugay as its new CEO and James Keenan as chairman of the board.

The appointments follow Steven Sterling’s decision to quit his executive role. He will however, continue to serve as director of the company.

Zugay currently serves as head of investments at BlackRock’s US Private Capital Group, with responsibility for heading the team’s underwriting and monitoring of its private investments.

He also holds the role of vice chairman at US Private Capital investment committee, and will take over as chairman of the committee on 1 January 2017.

Prior to BlackRock, Zugay served as a managing director at Ares Management's Direct Lending Group. He previously also served at debt restructuring firm Zolfo Cooper, as an analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, and as a generalist in the Los Angeles investment banking unit at UBS.

Keenan currently serves as the global head of fundamental credit at BlackRock, with responsibility for providing oversight of the investment process and performance, the partnerships with BlackRock's distribution channels, and the team's infrastructure. He joined  BlackRock in 2004 and also serves as the CIO of the Leveraged Finance team.

From 1998 to 2003, Keenan held credit research and trading roles at UBS Global Asset Management and at Columbia Management Group.

 “Michael is a talented investor with extensive experience in the middle market private investing space, and I am confident in his abilities to lead the business going forward,” Keenan said.

Zugay and Keenan will assume their new roles on 1 January 2017.