Cecelia Galligan, 26

Merely three years after graduating from the University of Southern California, Cecelia Galligan has already made her mark at one of America’s largest brokerage firms. At Cushman & Wakefield’s New York office, Galligan is part of Vice Chairman Gideon Gil’s capital markets group, an eight-person team that specialize in all aspects of underwriting debt and equity across every asset class. 

The team has placed $7.6 billion across capital stacks since Galligan joined in 2022. 

“Since being promoted to associate, I’ve taken a more senior role of leading deals from packaging models in financing memos to actually getting on the phone with lenders and pitching opportunities and negotiating term sheets all the way to closing,” said Galligan. “It feels good to be part of each step of the process.”

Standout deals that Galligan has helped lead include a $134 million acquisition financing package for Project Redhawk, a 1.3 million-square-foot, multi-market industrial portfolio of 31 assets across two cities; and working with J.P. Morgan Chase and First Citizens Bank to secure $75 million in construction financing for 255 East 39th Street, a new mixed-use development in Manhattan. 

She also helped work out a $200 million cash-neutral refinancing for 500 Fifth Avenue, a 60-story, Art Deco office skyscraper next to Bryant Park that faced a special servicing challenge and CMBS workout.  

It’s also not lost on Galligan that she’s already experienced inflation, a regional banking crisis, generationally high inflation, higher interest rates and a trade war. Since she began her career, it’s just been “downturn after downturn,” she admitted, but she noted the volatility has provided her with a rare learning opportunity.

“Sometimes, being in a more complex marketplace is actually a benefit, as lenders are asking questions they might not normally ask because they are constantly on the defensive,” she said. “So I’ve learned a lot having to navigate uncertainty.”