About
John Westerfield graduated from Dartmouth College in 1981 with an AB in Government and earned his MBA from Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration in 1985. Upon graduation, he joined Morgan Stanley in their investment banking division with a specific focus on the commercial real estate industry. He was promoted to Managing Director in 1996 and subsequently was responsible for the firm’s commercial real estate financing activities. In this role, he advised private and public owners of office buildings, shopping centers, apartment properties and hotels on the best way to finance these assets. In 2008, John Westerfield left Morgan Stanley and formed Braddock Capital Management to make investments in REIT securities and other private real estate investments, including the development of apartment buildings, condos and hotels.
In 2011, John Westerfield was asked by one of his old clients, the largest publicly traded real estate company in Japan, Mitsui Fudosan Group, to serve as a senior advisor to the board of directors of Mitsui Fudosan’s US operations called Mitsui Fudosan America, Inc.(“MFA”), based in New York City at 1251 Avenue of the Americas. After three years in this advisory role, Mr. Westerfield was asked by Mitsui Fudosan’s board of directors to assume the role of Chief Executive Officer of Mitsui Fudosan America. For the next 10 years, Mr. Westerfield oversaw the growth of MFA from a small real estate owner to one of the largest real estate investors and developers in the United States. As part of this growth strategy, Mr. John Westerfield directed the company’s investments in numerous development projects, including 55 and 50 Hudson Yards in New York, Mission Rock in San Francisco, Maple Terrace in Dallas, TX, and Figueroa Eight in Los Angeles. In his capacity as CEO, he grew the company from approximately $4 Bn in assets to nearly $20 Billion in assets. His responsibilities included overseeing acquisitions, development, asset management of MFA’s large portfolio of apartments and office buildings as well as serving on the board of the Halekulani Corporation in Hawaii which owns the five-star Halekulani Hotel in Honolulu.
At the end of 2023, at age 65, John Westerfield retired as CEO of Mitsui Fudosan America. He currently serves as an independent director of Bright Spire Capital, a New York Stock Exchange listed (NYSE: BRSP) commercial mortgage REIT. He currently resides with his wife in Florida.