FDIC Commercial Real Estate Conference
Biographies
Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Jelena McWilliams was sworn in as the 21st Chairman of the FDIC on June 5, 2018. She serves a six-year term on the FDIC Board of Directors, and is designated as Chairman for a term of five years.
Ms. McWilliams was Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and Corporate Secretary for Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, Ohio. At Fifth Third Bank she served as a member of the executive management team and numerous bank committees including Management Compliance, Enterprise Risk, Risk and Compliance, Operational Risk, Enterprise Marketing, and Regulatory Change.
Prior to joining Fifth Third Bank, Ms. McWilliams worked in the U.S. Senate for six years, most recently as Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director with the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and previously as Assistant Chief Counsel with the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
From 2007 to 2010, Ms. McWilliams served as an attorney at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she drafted consumer protection regulations, reviewed and analyzed comment letters on regulatory proposals, and responded to consumer complaints.
Before entering public service, she practiced corporate and securities law at Morrison & Foerster LLP in Palo Alto, California, and Hogan & Hartson LLP (now Hogan Lovells LLP) in Washington, D.C. In legal practice, Ms. McWilliams advised management and boards of directors on corporate governance, compliance, and reporting requirements under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. She also represented publicly and privately held companies in mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, strategic business ventures, venture capital investments, and general corporate matters.
Ms. McWilliams graduated with highest honors from the University of California at Berkeley with a BS in political science, and earned her law degree from U.C. Berkeley School of Law.
Sam Chandan, PhD, Silverstein Chair and Associate Dean of the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate and the recently announced Shanghai-based NYU Institute for Cities and Real Estate in Emerging Markets
Dean Chandan is also founder of Chandan Economics, a provider of real estate mortgage data and risk analytics to banks and bank regulators, co-host of the Real Estate Hour on SiriusXM Business Radio, and a partner and member of the investment committee at Capri Capital.
Dean Chandan's commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets and the broader economy has been featured regularly in the national and global press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, CNBC, and Bloomberg. His applied research is focused on CRE capital markets and risk analytics, as well as long-term changes in space use patterns and the impact of these changes on cities. Dean Chandan presents regular updates on CRE lending trends to U.S. and global regulators. He holds an honorary appointment as the Economist Laureate of the Real Estate Lenders Association and has served on the real estate advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Dean Chandan received his PhD in Applied Economics from the Wharton School, where he holds an adjunct professorship, and was a Doctoral Scholar in the Economics Department at Princeton University. In addition to his doctorate, he holds graduate degrees in economics and engineering and an undergraduate degree in economics, finance, and public policy.
Dean Chandan was previously the Laurence and Susan Hirsch Adjunct Associate Professor of Real Estate at the Wharton School and a visiting professor on the faculty of the Economics Department at Dartmouth College. Prior to founding Chandan Economics, Dean Chandan was Global Chief Economist and Executive Vice President at Real Capital Analytics and Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at Reis.
Jim Costello, Senior Vice President, Real Capital Analytics
Mr. Costello is an economist who analyzes the commercial property markets. He communicates stories on market performance to clients of Real Capital Analytics by way of writing and presentations.
Mr. Costello has worked in the commercial real estate space on issues of urban economics since 1990, including a 20-year stint with CBRE’s Torto Wheaton Research team. He expanded the reach of the Torto Wheaton Research team developing forecasts of global market fundamentals. He also developed approaches to pair the forecast results with frameworks to answer investor questions on asset values and relative investment opportunities.
Mr. Costello provided advice to the Treasury Department and other policymakers in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and helped educate these professionals on commercial real estate performance.
Mr. Costello has a master’s degree in economics and is a member of the Counselors of Real Estate. He is also a member of the Commercial Board of Governors of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Lauren Gilchrist, Senior Vice President/Senior Director of Research, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) – Philadelphia
Ms. Gilchrist directs JLL’s local market research platform for the region. Her specialties include urban and regional economics and demography. Prior to joining JLL, Ms. Gilchrist served as the Manager of Research & Analysis at the Center City District in Philadelphia and as a Research Analyst/Program Manager at the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness in Arlington, Virginia.
Ms. Gilchrist received her MS in public policy and management with concentrations in Urban and Regional Economic Development and International Trade and Development from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College and a BS in Business Administration from Bucknell University. She serves as President of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of NAIOP, on the Advisory Board for Temple’s Professional Science Master’s in GIS, and on the Board of Directors for the Old City Community Fund.
Ms. Gilchrist is a frequent lecturer and commentator on topics related to commercial real estate and economic development, with recent work cited in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Globe Street, and NBC10, among other outlets. She was named a Philadelphia Business Journal “40 Under 40 Honoree” in 2016.
Andrea Jang, Head of Growth, Americas, JLL Spark
JLL Spark is a $100 million strategic Global Venture Fund focused on investing in proptech for the commercial real estate sector. JLL Spark identifies and invests in startup technology companies that influence how owners and operators market, value, and operate commercial real estate.
Previously, Ms. Jang was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, at JLL. She was responsible for driving revenue growth through corporate acquisitions in capital markets, brokerage, and property management for JLL Americas. Ms. Jang has held previous roles focused on business development and client relationship management with key institutional real estate investors. Ms. Jang joined JLL in 2010 supporting financial analysis and business development for the NY Tenant Rep Brokerage Group, targeting high growth technology, private equity, and hedge fund clients.
Ms. Jang holds her MS in Real Estate from the Cornell Hotel School and her MBA from the Ivey Business School. She received her BS in Economics from the Wharton School.
Joseph McBride, CFA, Director – Research and Applied Data, Trepp, LLC
Mr. McBride is a key leader of the firm’s research, analysis, and product development initiatives. His market analysis is frequently cited in publications and other media that monitor the CRE market. Mr. McBride also works closely with Trepp bank clients who are looking to bolster their stress testing models and loan scorecard efforts using Trepp CRE loan data. As a liaison to banks and other financial institutions, Mr. McBride assists data teams in integrating Trepp loan data into bank proprietary systems. His responsibilities include helping clients incorporate the data, develop applicable modeling data sets, and determine an approach for the process of building a “bottom-up” CRE stress testing model. Mr. McBride also helped to develop Trepp’s proprietary CRE Default Model for use in stress testing and CECL reserving. Prior to his research and bank support, Mr. McBride led Trepp’s internal public relations team. He is one of Trepp’s trusted press contacts providing data, commentary, and analysis about the U.S. CMBS and CRE markets to financial publications.
Mr. McBride is quoted frequently in publications, such as Crain’s, Wall Street Journal, and various regional business journals. Mr. McBride is also a regular contributor to TreppWire, Trepp’s own widely read daily market commentary newsletter distributed to clients and industry leaders; TreppTalk, the firm’s blog; and Commercial Real Estate Direct Mid-Year and Year-End, biannual magazines with in-depth market analysis.
Mr. McBride holds a BS and MBA in Finance and is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Fordham University.
Michael Regan, Senior Examiner, Large Financial Institutions, FDIC
Mr. Regan regularly conducts examinations of highly complex financial institutions and has a comprehensive understanding of the large bank supervisory process. He has been examiner-in-charge of some of the largest, most complex examinations in the New York Territory, including those in the FDIC’s Large Financial Institution Program.
Throughout his career, he has participated in Shared National Credit Reviews, in which he evaluated the credit quality of large, complex syndicated loans. Recently, Mr. Regan assisted the FDIC in developing its National CRE Examination Work Program. He also has trained examiners in the evaluation of CRE stress testing.
Mr. Regan joined the FDIC in 1989, during the S&L banking crisis, as an examiner in the Wayne, New Jersey field office. Since 2015, he has served as Asset Manager for the FDIC at a multi-billion dollar financial institution.
Mr. Regan graduated magna cum laude with a B.S.B.A. in Finance from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
Donald Sheets, Managing Director, Clarion Partners, LLC
Mr. Sheets is Managing Director at Clarion Partners, LLC (Clarion), serves as Portfolio Manager of the Special Situations Debt Group (SSDG), and has over 20 years of leadership, property acquisition, asset management, and restructuring experience across a variety of capital structures, asset types, and geographies. SSDG was established upon Clarion’s acquisition of AlumCreek Holdings LLC, a private equity platform that he established in 2014 to execute and manage an investment mandate of nearly $200 million with a prominent endowment.
Throughout his career, Mr. Sheets has recruited, trained, and managed multiple teams of transaction and portfolio management professionals. He has sourced and directly managed over $3.5 billion in approximately 75 transactions, including the acquisition of commercial mortgage claims, distressed real estate-related debt, high-yield preferred real estate securities, mezzanine financing, and real estate enterprise liquidations. He has overseen all stages of the investment cycle, including proprietary research, sourcing, execution, financing, asset management, and disposition.
Mr. Sheets was appointed in 2009 to the faculty of both Columbia University and New York University, where he developed and teaches the first graduate-level distressed real estate investing coursework within each university's curriculum. He serves on the Harvard Alumni Real Estate Board and has lectured at MIT, The George Washington University, Georgetown University, and Harvard University.
Mr. Sheets received a BBA in Accounting and Real Estate Finance from The George Washington University magna cum laude and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Vivek Thadani, Director – Strategy & Innovation, Moody’s Analytics
Mr. Thadani leads the product development for REIS’s API Product Suite. In addition to his team supporting all API products, the group monitors technology trends to build out next-generation cloud-based products for supporting the leading CRE market participants as they seek advanced solutions.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Thadani managed the launch of new CRE products in the Moody’s Analytics Accelerator as well as other technology-based initiatives. Previously, he led the Structured Finance Valuations & Advisory group at Moody’s Analytics which developed regulatory solutions for CCAR/DFAST as well as valutation solutions for esoteric securitizaitons.
Mr. Thadani holds a B.E. in Computer Science from Mumbai University and an M.E.M. from Dartmouth College.
John Vecchione, Vice President of Risk Analytics, CoStar Group
Mr. Vecchione is responsible for the vision, design, and development of new analytics products supporting CRE lenders and CMBS investors. Additionally, he oversees CoStar Risk Analytics, a business unit that provides risk management services to financial institutions including Daily Portfolio Surveillance, CCAR/DFAST, CECL, Tenant Analytics, CMBS Credit Models, Underwriting, and more.
Leveraging two decades of experience in designing risk management solutions and consulting for financial institutions, under Mr. Vecchione’s leadership, CoStar Risk Analytics has developed multiple innovative solutions for both CRE lenders and CMBS investors that currently support risk management and strategic decision-making for over 70 of the largest financial institutions in the industry.
Mr. Vecchione joined CoStar in 2008 as a product manager for CoStar Risk Analytics. Prior to that, he led a financial analytics team at Darling Consulting Group that assisted dozens of banks in balance-sheet risk management.
Mr. Vecchione earned a BS in Finance and an MBA in Information Technology from Bentley University.
Julie Whelan, Senior Director of Research, Head of Americas Occupier Thought Leadership, CB Richard Ellis
Ms. Whelan’s goal is to create research that helps occupier clients challenge their real estate norms as the pace of change, largely due to technology, increases. She has more than 15 years of experience in real estate market analysis and consulting.
Prior to joining CBRE, Ms. Whelan was the Vice President of Global Realty Services for State Street Corporation. She built a team responsible for analyzing the strategic and financial impacts associated with leasing decisions globally. She has built her career on building facts and figures that influence the c-suite on matters related to real estate in large institutions. Based in Boston, Ms. Whelan has influence over a global platform of researchers at CBRE.
Ms. Whelan holds a Bachelor’s degree from Providence College and a Master’s in Business Administration from Suffolk University. Julie also completed studies in Commercial Real Estate at Boston University and is a regular speaker at industry events.