John McIlwain
Professional Biography
From 2001 until 2014 I was Senior Resident Fellow/J. Ronald Terwilliger Chair for Housing at the Urban Land Institute. I helped to organize and cultivate the Terwilliger Center’s thought leadership on affordable housing solutions around the world, bringing to the position over 35 years of experience in affordable housing financing and investment.
As Senior Resident Fellow for Housing, I led ULI’s research efforts to seek and promote housing solutions with an emphasis on developing sustainable environments and housing patterns for urban areas. At ULI, I chaired nine ULI Advisory Services panels, including the After Sandy panel in the Northeast U.S., which led to the establishment of ULI’s Urban Resilience Program. I have authored or co-authored numerous ULI publications, including Housing in America: The Baby Boomers Turn 65 and Housing in America: The Next Decade as well as contributing dozens of articles on housing to Urban Land Magazine.
From 2009 until 2016 I consulted on various housing and urban development projects aroud the U.S.. From 2013 until 2016 I also served as a senior advisor at the Jonathan Rose Companies, a leading national affordable, sustainable housing developer headquartered in New York.
Prior to joining ULI, I co-founded and served as Senior Managing Director of the American Communities Fund for Fannie Mae in Washington, D.C. In this capacity, I was responsible for structuring, underwriting and closing equity investments of more than $700 million in lower-income residential and neighborhood retail developments. I was also president and chief executive officer of the Fannie Mae Foundation.
Before working at Fannie Mae, I was a partner in the Washington, DC offices of the law firm Powell, Goldstein, Frazer, and Murphy, where I had a national practice representing major developers, owners, and financers of affordable housing, and served as managing partner. Prior to that I served as executive assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. I began my career in housing as Assistant Director for Finance and Administration, and Deputy Director, of the Maine State Housing Authority. On graduating from law school, I was an associate at the law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Palmer & Wood in New York.
I have served as President of the National Housing Conference, the Center for Housing Policy, and the National Housing and Rehabilitation Association, and on a number of other for profit and non-profit boards, including the Children's National Medical Center, Georgetown Day School, and the International Housing Coalition.
I serve as an advisor to the Climate, Mind, and Behavior Program at the Garrison Institute in Garrison, New York, which program I directed from 2015 until 2017. I am a Fellow of the American Academy of Housing and Communities (there is a half hour podcast on this website where Nan McKay interviews me about my housing career).
I hold an AB Cum Laude from Princeton University, where I majored in Philosophy, and a JD from New York University School of Law, where I served as an Editor for the NYU Law Review and was a John Norton Pomeroy Scholar.