Jennifer Villa currently serves as Executive Director and Group Head of Ashland Place Finance LLC.  Ashland Place, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, is an institutional financing platform offering capital solutions to the global commercial aerospace industry, including airlines, lessors, hedge funds and private equity participants.  Villa has nearly 30 years on industry experience in both aviation leasing and lending. 

Ashland Place was launched in 2021 with Villa at the helm.  To date, Villa has solely sourced all originations for the platform and led two aviation loan securitizations, including APL 2025-1 in October 2025 which achieved record-breaking A-note pricing.    

Prior to her tenure at Ashland Place, Villa served as President of CIT’s Aviation Lending business.  Villa rejoined CIT to lead Aviation Lending in October 2017 following the sale of the leasing division to Avolon in April 2017. 

Prior to that, Villa was Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer of the aerospace business, overseeing a $22 billion portfolio of aircraft loans and leases.  She handled a myriad of duties both within and outside the Risk organization, including regulatory matters during CIT's transition to a bank, its first new aircraft orders with Boeing, Airbus and Embraer, its EETC buying program, its joint venture with Century Tokyo, and various other strategic initiatives.  Having joined the firm in 1998, Villa also led the company’s restructuring efforts with multiple airlines in the post-9/11 period. 

Villa earned a bachelor's degree in Economics and a Certificate in Political Economics from Princeton University.  She is also a member of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading (ISTAT), a former member of the Board of Directors of Airlink, a charity connecting airlines and nonprofits in the wake of natural disasters and other humanitarian crises worldwide, and is active with the alumni groups of both Princeton and Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.