Cushman & Wakefield has hired Doug Middleton, who led CBRE’s institutional investment sales group in New York City for the past eight years, to run its own Institutional Capital Markets business across the city, the firm announced Oct. 15, 2026. Jack Stillwagon, who worked alongside Middleton at CBRE, is coming with him.
Middleton joins as executive vice chairman and Stillwagon as executive managing director. Beyond serving institutional clients in New York, the pair will work with Cushman & Wakefield’s capital markets teams nationally, “bringing New York market expertise to national client relationships and cross-market opportunities,” according to the Business Wire release.
The deal record that came with him
At CBRE, Middleton led the Investment Properties Institutional Group in New York City, after an earlier stint as director of investment sales at Eastdil Secured. Cushman & Wakefield lists his recent assignments as the sales of 450 Park Avenue for $455 million, 1334 York Avenue for $510 million, the fee interest at the Palace Hotel for $490 million and 1 Whitehall for $104.5 million, plus the $367.5 million recapitalization of the Oriana. Together those five deals total roughly $1.93 billion.
Stillwagon advised on office, residential and industrial transactions in the same CBRE group and was “actively involved in all phases of the transaction process,” the release says. He previously held positions at Waterfall Properties and Atlantic Creek Real Estate Partners.
“New York is essential to Cushman & Wakefield’s institutional capital markets strategy,” said Miles Treaster, the firm’s president of Americas Capital Markets. “Doug and Jack bring deep transaction experience and client relationships to the firm. Their partnership will strengthen our New York capital markets presence and more effectively connect our regional clients with our national and global platform.”
Middleton said the firm’s leadership “has cultivated an exceptional culture in New York City,” and that he is “eager to enter this next chapter of my career and contribute to expanding Cushman & Wakefield’s Capital Markets presence across the city.” Todd Schwartz, the firm’s Northeast regional president, called the two “trusted advisors who consistently bring thoughtful, strategic thinking to the most complex New York transactions.”
A business line that has lagged the rest of the firm
The hire targets the part of Cushman & Wakefield’s business that has been slowest to recover. In its second-quarter 2026 results, the firm said capital markets revenue fell 1% from a year earlier, driven by a 6% decline in the Americas that it attributed mainly to fewer mid-sized transactions, “most notably in the multi-family sector.” Leasing revenue, by contrast, rose 27% in the same quarter. RealtyWire covered that split when the firm reported an 11% revenue gain to $2.76 billion on the strength of leasing.
The firm attributed that Americas decline to mid-sized deals rather than large ones. Middleton’s team works the institutional end of the market, and the release frames the hire as a way to strengthen the firm’s New York capital markets presence and connect regional clients to its national and global platform. Whether it moves the Americas capital markets line will show up in coming quarterly reports; on our reading, a team with close to $2 billion in recent named assignments is a meaningful addition in a single market.
It is one of several senior leadership moves at the largest commercial brokerages; JLL recently created a U.S. country CEO role and named Mark Gibson to it. Cushman & Wakefield, which reported 2025 revenue of $10.3 billion and has about 53,000 employees in more than 350 offices, did not disclose terms of the hires. More on brokerage leadership moves is in our Agents & Brokerages section.
