Leadership Changes at Eastdil Secured in September 2025

Leadership Transition at Eastdil Secured: The Appointments of Kevin Sheehan and Sean Gulian to Co-Lead the National Housing Group for Southern California

Introduction

Eastdil Secured, L.L.C., a preeminent real estate investment bank, has made significant leadership changes for its National Housing Group in Southern California-one of the country’s most dynamic real estate markets. With the recent appointment of Kevin Sheehan (effective immediately) and the impending arrival of Sean Gulian (effective September 15, 2025) as co-leads, Eastdil Secured signals a distinct evolution in strategy, operational focus, and market engagement. This report explores the context and implications of these appointments, delves into the professional backgrounds of the new co-heads, examines Eastdil Secured’s organizational structure and strategy, and situates these changes within the broader Southern California market and real estate advisory industry.

Eastdil Secured: Company Overview

Founded in 1967, Eastdil Secured has distinguished itself as a global real estate investment bank that combines capital markets acumen with deep real estate knowledge. With a privately held, employee-invested structure, the firm prides itself on providing independent, conflict-free advice tailored to each client’s needs and long-term interests¹. Key pillars of its business philosophy include creative problem-solving, flawless execution, and the cultivation of client relationships that span decades, not just transactions.

Eastdil Secured’s business lines cover all major property types, including office, retail, multifamily/housing, hospitality, industrial, digital infrastructure, logistics, and life sciences. The firm is recognized as the number one global advisor on $100 million-plus transactions, the leading debt placement platform in the United States and Europe, and a market leader in multifamily, hotel, retail, office, and industrial investment sales².

With over 800 employees and an estimated $173.9 million in annual revenue, Eastdil Secured boasts a collaborative, intelligence-driven culture underpinned by technology and innovation, all aiming to deliver “world-class advice and exceptional results” across the transaction spectrum².

Organizational Structure and National Housing Group

Eastdil’s organizational structure is designed for agility, collaboration, and optimal market coverage. The company’s leadership team includes industry veterans such as CEO Roy March and President D. Michael Van Konynenburg, with operations spanning key metros and asset classes³.

The National Housing Group, a central division within Eastdil’s asset class-focused approach, is charged with investment sales, joint ventures, capital raises, and advisory across every spectrum of multifamily and housing-related investment activity. It is known for deep regional connectivity, comprehensive market insight, and expertise in everything from affordable housing tax credit deals to large institutional multifamily transactions. The group’s footprint covers all major coastal and sunbelt markets, now with reinforced leadership in Southern California^4,5.

Reporting under the leadership of senior figures such as Ryan Reid, Phil Brosseau, and Jeff Weber⁶, the Southern California housing business is an integral part of the broader West Coast operations, coordinating closely with offices in San Francisco and beyond.

The Leadership Transition: Timeline and Structure

The following table summarizes key recent leadership appointments and their effective dates within Eastdil Secured’s Southern California housing platform, with additional context for the broader National Housing Group.

Position	Name	Effective Date
Co-lead, National Housing Group for Southern California	Kevin Sheehan	Immediately
Co-lead, National Housing Group for Southern California	Sean Gulian	September 15, 2025

Eastdil Secured’s decision to implement a co-leadership model for its critical regional group-and to stagger the start dates of its two new leaders-reflects a nuanced approach to transition management, knowledge transfer, and team continuity. Sheehan’s appointment is immediate to establish leadership presence, while Gulian’s arrival on September 15, 2025, allows him to honor his commitments at Nuveen Real Estate and ensures a seamless onboarding process⁵.

This model facilitates a robust leadership integration and leverages both executives’ complementary experience and networks. It also echoes broader trends in professional services, where co-leadership is increasingly recognized for enhancing diversity, knowledge sharing, and succession planning⁷.

Profiles: Kevin Sheehan and Sean Gulian

Kevin Sheehan - Background and Credentials

Kevin Sheehan brings a formidable blend of institutional and advisory experience in real estate to Eastdil Secured. Immediately prior to this role, Sheehan served as a Managing Director on the capital markets team at JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), where he specialized in multifamily investment sales and capital raises across Southern California⁵. His tenure at JLL solidified his reputation for thoughtful execution of complex transactions in a region known for its multifaceted housing dynamics.

Before JLL, Sheehan was a Director at Walker & Dunlop, focusing on multifamily and land investment advisory in the Greater Los Angeles area. His track record includes brokering high-value institutional sales, structuring joint ventures, and capitalizing multifamily developments-a background that aligns closely with Eastdil’s multifamily-heavy Southern California strategy.

Educationally, Sheehan is recognized for his technical and academic credentials, having earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University, a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia, and a Master’s in Real Estate Development from MIT⁸. This rare intersection of engineering, law, and specialized real estate training augments his ability to operate at the confluence of market analysis, deal structuring, and legal risk management.

Notably, Sheehan’s early experience also saw him in the development space at Boston Properties and as a corporate attorney at Nutter, McClennen & Fish, further reinforcing his multidisciplinary strengths-an advantage in navigating the complexities of Southern California’s regulatory and development environment⁸.

Sheehan will be based out of Eastdil’s Santa Monica office, positioning him close to core submarkets such as West Los Angeles, Playa Vista, and the city’s Westside, primary arenas for institutional housing investment in the region⁵.

Sean Gulian - Background and Credentials

Sean Gulian returns to Eastdil with extensive principal-side and advisory experience spanning institutional transactions, acquisitions, and joint ventures.

Immediately prior to the appointment, Gulian served as Nuveen Real Estate’s Head of West Coast Housing Acquisitions & Dispositions, where he led the team responsible for building and managing a vast portfolio spanning multifamily, affordable housing, and tax-exempt bond investments⁹. At Nuveen, Gulian gained experience in structuring strategic partnerships, optimizing portfolios, and executing high-profile sales and acquisitions throughout Southern California, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.

Gulian is no stranger to Eastdil-having previously worked there (2017-2020) as part of the multifamily and mixed-use investment sales and equity placement group in Los Angeles. During that tenure, he executed roughly 45 transactions totaling over $25 billion of deal capitalization, underscoring his ability to close landmark institutional deals and complex recapitalizations⁹.

Prior to his earlier role at Eastdil, Gulian was on the multifamily investment sales team at HFF, LP (now part of JLL), where he contributed to more than $11 billion in institutional sales across the multifamily spectrum.

He began his career at Deloitte Consulting in the real estate consulting group, providing a foundation in analytical rigor and risk assessment. Gulian holds a bachelor’s degree from UCLA-a connection that further strengthens his network within Southern California’s professional and investment community.

Gulian will be based in Eastdil’s Newport Beach office, strategically situated to serve Orange County, the Inland Empire, and San Diego County-regions with distinct market drivers, opportunities, and client sets^5,6.

Eastdil Secured’s Southern California National Housing Group: Mandate and Market Focus

Group Mandate

The National Housing Group in Southern California is tasked with housing investment sales, structuring joint ventures, and facilitating capital market transactions, with an expanded focus covering multifamily, affordable housing, and related joint venture activity. The territories under the group’s purview are among the most competitively sought-after in the Western U.S., including:

Los Angeles County
Orange County
Inland Empire
San Diego County
Ventura County
Phoenix, Arizona
Las Vegas, Nevada

This grouping is logical: the metropolitan areas share investor pools, demographic similarities, and intertwining capital flows. By integrating markets such as Phoenix and Las Vegas into the same group, Eastdil makes use of its cross-market connectivity and the capital mobility between Southern California and nearby Sun Belt growth centers^5,6.

Institutional Context

This group functions as a critical node within Eastdil’s national delivery platform, interfacing with key partners in the San Francisco office and coordinating with national leadership to ensure consistent, scaled execution across regional and national mandates⁵. The group’s work increasingly involves complex institutional placements-structuring transactions for public pension plan clients, major U.S. and global private equity funds, and large real estate developers seeking creative deal structures in difficult regulatory environments.

Strategic Implications of Leadership Change

Rationale for the Transition

The appointments of Sheehan and Gulian are not isolated personnel moves but rather strategic maneuvers designed to bolster Eastdil’s market share, deepen client relationships, and augment execution capacity in a highly competitive, evolving market. The leadership change comes at a time when the Southern California market is undergoing both cyclical and secular shifts:

A tight supply of multifamily product in core locations, coupled with persistent affordability crises.
Increased investor demand for innovative joint ventures and recapitalizations as traditional value-add deals become harder to source.
Growth in affordable and workforce housing mandates, requiring nuanced expertise in tax credit and public-private deal structures.
Continued capital flows from institutional investors targeting Sun Belt and West Coast population centers for resilience and long-term growth^10,11.

Bringing in leaders with complementary experience-Sheehan with recent advisory and capital markets roots, Gulian with institutional principal-side experience-positions Eastdil to cover the full spectrum of market requirements, from large institutional disposals to creative structuring in affordable and workforce housing. The co-leadership model, meanwhile, is intended to maximize the combined impact of their networks, drive innovation, and provide continuity during an important period of market transition and heightened transaction volume⁷.

Expected Benefits

Broader Regional Coverage and Deepened Relationships
Having co-leads based in both Santa Monica and Newport Beach ensures deep on-the-ground coverage of the two highest-concentration submarkets for institutional activity in Southern California. It also supports high-touch, relationship-driven client service consistent with Eastdil’s core values.
Complementary Expertise and Cross-Pollination
The combination of advisory/structuring experience and principal-side (ownership) knowledge allows the group to deliver solutions that directly speak to client priorities across the investment life cycle-from acquisition and financing to recapitalization and eventual sale.
Enhanced Execution and Scalability
Given the recent departures of other established multifamily advisory teams in California to competitors like Newmark, strengthening leadership is both a defensive move-preserving franchise value for institutional clients-and an offensive one, enabling Eastdil to win new mandates as transaction volumes rise in 2025¹².

Southern California Housing Market Context (2025)

Market Performance and Forecast

As of late 2025, Southern California remains one of the nation’s most closely watched and strategically vital housing markets. Although home prices are historically elevated, housing sales have tapered modestly from the frenzied post-pandemic period. Data from the California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.) showed a 1.7% YoY decline in Southern California single-family home sales as of July 2025, a trend mirrored within submarkets-Los Angeles County up 1.0%, Orange County down 1.0%, Riverside and San Diego counties seeing larger drops, and Ventura County bucking the trend with a 12.7% increase¹³.

Median sale prices, meanwhile, have continued to rise, with C.A.R. forecasting a 4.6% increase statewide for 2025 (to $909,400)-driven by constrained supply and persistent demand among both individual homebuyers and multifamily/rental investors¹¹.

Housing affordability remains strained, with affordability indices at historic lows: just 16% of households are estimated to be able to afford a median-priced home in 2025, although interest rates are expected to moderate, enticing some new buyers into the market.

Multifamily Investment Trends

Institutional appetite for multifamily remains robust, fueled by:

Unabated rent growth in coastal and infill neighborhoods.
A growing preference for rental housing over home ownership, particularly among younger demographics and in high cost-of-living regions.
Ongoing demand for affordable rentals as localities raise regulatory and permitting barriers for new supply.

CBRE’s U.S. Market Outlook for 2025 predicts that multifamily vacancy in key markets will edge down due to “robust tenant demand,” even as the cost of homeownership drives apartment demand further. With equity sidelined by higher interest rates in 2024, the gradual normalization of borrowing costs is expected to reinvigorate transaction activity¹⁰.

Policy and Regulatory Factors

Southern California landlords and developers face increasing requirements for affordable housing contributions, inclusionary zoning, and tenant protections, creating demand for advisory services well-versed in navigating regulatory risk. Market leaders must keep pace with shifting state and local mandates regarding rent control, eviction moratoriums, and low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC)-related deals¹⁴.

Competitive Landscape

The real estate advisory field in Southern California includes global giants (CBRE, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, Newmark), well-capitalized regionals, and boutique shops with specialized expertise. Recent talent moves-including Newmark’s poaching of a major multifamily team from Eastdil in 2025-underscore the fierce competition for talent and mandates in the sector^15,16.

Eastdil’s long-established reputation and client roster position it as a leading advisor for high-value transactions and institutional mandates, but the field is evolving rapidly: players are differentiating themselves through technology-enabled marketing, capital raising capability, and the ability to structure increasingly complex deals.

The Rationale and Best Practices of Co-Leadership in Professional Services

The co-leadership model adopted for Eastdil Secured’s National Housing Group is part of a growing trend in complex, people-driven advisory organizations. According to industry research, co-leadership:

Improves decision making by incorporating multiple perspectives and domain specialties.
Decreases burnout and enhances leader well-being by sharing the burden of high-intensity client-facing roles.
Fosters innovation and succession planning.
Promotes diversity, enables more sustainable organizational leadership, and supports a more robust company culture⁷.

However, successful co-leadership requires clear definition of roles, transparent communication, and well-engineered decision rights to avoid delays and conflicts. Organizations like Eastdil, with a culture emphasizing collaboration and “internal connectivity,” are particularly well-suited to leveraging the strengths of co-leadership models.

Within real estate investment banking, dual leadership can further improve coverage, ensure continuity during team transitions, and enable more granular focus on client subsegments and regional nuances.

Strategic Outlook: What Sheehan and Gulian’s Appointments Mean for Eastdil Secured

Renewed Focus on Core Markets

Sheehan and Gulian’s complementary backgrounds and pre-existing relationships in the region position Eastdil to reinforce client retention and strategic expansion simultaneously. Their principal-side and advisory experience means clients should expect deeper underwriting, greater creativity in deal structuring, and a broader pool of capital syndication partners.

Scaling Affordable and Workforce Housing Capabilities

With an explicit mandate to “expand the firm’s National Affordable Housing businesses,” Sheehan and Gulian are likely to be instrumental in deepening Eastdil’s access to developers, public agencies, and private equity investors focused on the affordable housing space⁶. This may involve scaling LIHTC, workforce housing, and institutional joint venture capabilities-core growth areas for CRE advisory as policy and demographic trends favor increased affordable supply.

Responding to Talent Moves and Market Volatility

Eastdil’s hiring comes after losing notable members of its own multifamily team to competitors like Newmark-a signal that retaining top talent and client continuity is front-of-mind for leadership¹². The dual appointments signal resolve and forward planning, countering any perception of franchise vulnerability and reaffirming the firm’s depth and adaptability.

Integration with National Platform

Eastdil’s structure ensures the new co-leads will remain functionally and culturally integrated with the national group, sharing information, best practices, and deal flow with institutions and developers across the U.S. This connectivity is essential as housing investment becomes increasingly national in character, with buyers and sellers seeking cross-market scale, speed, and execution consistency.

Conclusion

The appointment of Kevin Sheehan and Sean Gulian as co-leads of Eastdil Secured’s National Housing Group for Southern California marks a decisive, strategic response to both market opportunity and industry disruption. By installing two proven operators with diverse, complementary backgrounds in the heart of the nation’s most challenging and opportunity-rich housing market, Eastdil reaffirms its leadership and adaptability.

The co-leadership model, rooted in best practices for agility and cross-pollination, matches the reality of 2025’s rapidly shifting commercial real estate landscape: deals are larger, more complex, and constrained by policy and capital market volatility. The market is also more competitive, making execution, relationships, and reputation more critical than ever.

As the Southern California housing market enters a new era-bookended by modest sales declines, rising prices, and relentless regulatory change-Eastdil’s new leadership team is positioned to help clients navigate, capitalize on, and grow through the uncertainty. With the region’s rental, affordable, and institutional housing sectors poised for growth, the firm’s integrated approach and leadership renewal should sustain and expand its franchise for years to come.

Key Takeaway:
Eastdil Secured’s high-profile appointments reflect a sophisticated, future-ready response to market and organizational change-one that leverages deep talent, co-leadership innovation, and a constantly evolving, client-centered platform primed for the next cycle of Southern California housing investment^5,17,7.