Vista Credit Strategic Lending Board Loses Its Independent Majority as Stephen Riddick Exits

Stephen Riddick leaves barely three months into a three-year term shareholders elected him to in May, thinning both of the fund’s board committees in the process.

September 15, 2026

Stephen Riddick has resigned from the board of Vista Credit Strategic Lending Corp., the non-traded business development company on Vista’s credit platform, effective September 14. He notified the board of his decision on September 9, and the company said the resignation did not stem from any disagreement with the fund, its investment adviser or the board over operations, policies or practices.

A board that no longer clears the independence threshold

The departure leaves four directors where there were five, and an even split between independent and interested directors rather than the three-to-two independent majority the board has carried since it was seated in 2023. The 1940 Act requires that a majority of a BDC’s directors not be interested persons, so the seat will have to be filled to restore that margin.

Riddick’s exit also thins both standing committees, each of which is limited to independent directors and each of which had comprised all three of them:

• the audit committee, now down to Olivia Kirtley, its chair, and Sheila Finnerty;
• the nominating and corporate governance committee, reduced to the same two members and charged with recommending candidates to fill board vacancies.

Four months into a three-year term

The timing is the harder part to read. Shareholders elected Riddick to a three-year Class III term at the annual meeting on May 28, with roughly 28.1 million shares voted in favor and 61 against. He stepped away a little over three months into a term that was to run through 2029. No successor was named.

The audit committee has had an active year. It approved the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as the fund’s auditor in March, following the dismissal of Ernst and Young. Riddick was not one of the two members designated as audit committee financial experts, a role held by Kirtley and Finnerty, so the committee’s accounting depth survives the change.

The seat being vacated

Riddick, a retired attorney, joined the board in 2023 alongside Kirtley and Finnerty, bringing a corporate governance and technology-sector legal background to a credit vehicle lending into software. He previously served as chief legal officer, general counsel and corporate secretary of Tenable Holdings, and continues to sit on the board of Bowman Consulting Group.

Vista Credit Strategic Lending is advised by Vista Credit BDC Management, an affiliate of Vista Equity Partners, and lends to enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses. Its shares are not exchange-listed, and it raises capital through continuous private subscription closings rather than a public offering.