Specialty finance lender Hercules Technology Growth Capital announced Wednesday it had appointed Mark Harris, formerly of Avenue Capital Group, to replace Jessica Baron as CFO.

Baron’s departure became effective Tuesday. “While finding someone to replace Jessica was difficult, I am pleased to say that after conducting an exhaustive search, we have found an accomplished executive with exceptional financial and operational expertise to fill her position,” Hercules CEO Manuel Henriquez said in a news release.

For the past eight years, Harris has served as CFO of Avenue Capital’s Asia Strategy and as its senior managing director/head of Asia. Before that, he was corporate financial controller for Hutchinson Telecommunications in Hong Kong and vice president of finance at Vsource.

“With 20 years of experience working with and within public companies, as well as his investment knowledge of the direct lending and mezzanine space as portfolio manager at Avenue Capital, Mark will play an integral role in helping me lead Hercules through the next stage of its evolution,” Henriquez said.

Harris will join Hercules on Aug. 1. In the meantime, corporate controller Andrew Olson will serve as interim CFO and interim principal accounting officer.

Hercules has “a long history of providing venture capital-backed companies with a broad range of flexible and customized financial solutions to help them meet their growth objectives,” Harris said. “I look forward to being a part of that tradition, and to helping Hercules continue to succeed and grow.”

In 2012, Harris was named CFO of Apollo Investment Corp. but was unable to take the position.