Meridian Lays Off 5 Percent of Its Staff
Moves impacted the debt and investment sales team along with firm’s public relations head
By Cathy Cunningham and Nicholas Rizzi April 26, 2023 6:09 pm
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Meridian Capital Group laid off “approximately 5 percent” of its staff on Wednesday, including its senior managing director of public relations, according to a source.
The source said the layoffs were largely due to the current economic market, and that the company tried to avoid the cuts.
The downsizing didn’t impact Meridian’s leasing brokers, but was confined to its debt and investment sales team, the source said.
The highest-profile staff member in the layoffs was Jonathan Stern, Meridian’s longtime spokesperson who was recently promoted to senior managing director of marketing and communications. Stern joined the company in February 2010.
Meridian’s cuts come the same month that Walker & Dunlop laid off 110 employees, or about 8 percent of its staff, which CEO Willy Walker also blamed on economic uncertainty.
The Meridian source said its layoffs weren’t as deep as Walker & Dunlop’s, and some brokers in the company weren’t even aware of the cuts when contacted Wednesday evening.
Senior executive managing director David Schechtman‘s 32-person team middle market investment sales was unaffected by the cuts. In fact, “we are adding three new associates over the next two weeks ,” Schechtman told CO.
Representatives for Meridian declined to comment. Stern didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story.
Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com and Nicholas Rizzi can be reached at nrizzi@commercialobserver.com.
