LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 28, 2025--
Walker & Dunlop, Inc. (NYSE: WD) announced the expansion of its London-based brokerage and capital markets advisory team with the strategic hire of Javier Villanueva as managing director. Villanueva, an Eastdil Secured veteran, will report into Claudio V.R. Sgobba, senior managing director and Head of EMEA Capital Markets. He will be responsible for leading the structuring and execution of capital solutions across all property types and jurisdictions throughout Europe and the Middle East.
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“We are bringing together a group of financial professionals, true global citizens and bankers, driven by an unwavering dedication to exceed client expectations. Javier is a perfect representation of our team and brings along with him deep expertise and a great network,” said Sgobba. “Villanueva brings 25 years of experience and over $55 billion of deal activity in commercial real estate, having worked at premier firms focusing on investment banking, advisory, investment management, lending, and structuring. He will be a true asset as we continue to grow our Walker & Dunlop footprint in this part of the world.”
Prior to joining Walker & Dunlop, Villanueva was a managing director, acting as head of investment management at Martley Capital Group, a real estate investment advisory platform focused on investing, lending, asset management and advisory. In addition, Villanueva spent nearly a decade at Eastdil Secured in London, joining in 2014 as the firm was setting up operations in EMEA. Focusing on debt solutions, he helped grow the nascent platform into the top advisory firm in EMEA. Previous roles include positions at LNR, Wachovia and Deutsche Bank in London, Nomura and MUFG Securities in New York.
Walker & Dunlop established its Mayfair London office earlier this year. Walker & Dunlop’s current EMEA leadership includes former heads of debt and equity capital raising desks, bringing invaluable expertise from esteemed institutions such as ING, RBS, KKR and Standard Chartered Bank.
“I am thrilled to join Walker & Dunlop at a pivotal moment in its growth. Having been in a similar circumstance previously in my career, I appreciate the ‘secret sauce’ that is vital to international expansion in this region,” said Villanueva. “As former investors and lenders ourselves, this team of deal makers possesses decades of experience that transcends mere advisory roles.”
About Walker & Dunlop
Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD) is one of the largest commercial real estate finance and advisory services firms in the United States and internationally. Our ideas and capital create communities where people live, work, shop, and play. Our innovative people, breadth of our brand, and our technological capabilities make us one of the most insightful and client-focused firms in the commercial real estate industry.
Javier Villanueva
SAN FRANCISCO & JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 12, 2026--
Abridge, the leading enterprise-grade AI for clinical conversations, is collaborating with Availity, the nation’s largest real-time health information network, to launch a first-of-its kind prior authorization experience. The engagement uses cutting-edge technology grounded in the clinician-patient conversation to facilitate a more efficient process between clinicians and health plans in medical necessity review.
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Rather than creating parallel AI systems across healthcare stakeholders, Abridge and Availity are working together to ensure shared clinical context at the point of conversation powers administrative processes, such as prior authorization review and submission, improving outcomes for patients and the teams delivering care.
This collaboration unites two trusted and scaled organizations: combining Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform, serving over 200 health systems and projected to support over 80 million patient-clinician conversations in 2026, with Availity’s next-generation, FHIR-native Intelligent Utilization Management solution, which helps payers and providers digitize and operationalize coverage requirements within administrative workflows.
Availity’s FHIR-native APIs enable fast, scalable, and secure connectivity of payer information across the entire healthcare ecosystem. With Abridge’s Contextual Reasoning Engine technology, clinicians can gain visibility into relevant clinical information during the conversation to support documentation aligned with prior authorization requirements.
“At Availity, we’ve invested in building AI-powered, FHIR-native APIs designed to bring clinical policy logic directly into provider workflows,” said Russ Thomas, CEO of Availity. “By embedding our technology at the point of conversation, we’re enabling faster, more transparent utilization management decisions rooted in clinical context. We’re excited to collaborate with Abridge and to demonstrate what’s possible when payer intelligence meets real-time provider workflows.”
The development of real-time prior authorization is just a component of a broader revenue cycle collaboration that is focused on applying real-time conversational intelligence across the patient, provider, and payer experiences. The companies intend to support integration by collaborating on workflow alignment between their respective platforms in the following areas:
“Abridge and Availity are each bringing national scale, deep trust, and a track record of solving important challenges across the care and claims experience to this partnership,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “We’re building real-time bridges between patients, providers, and payers, unlocking shared understanding, focused at the point of conversation.”
About Availity
Availity empowers payers and providers to deliver transformative patient experiences by enabling the seamless exchange of clinical, administrative, and financial information. As the nation's largest real-time health information network, Availity develops intelligent, automated, and interoperable solutions that foster collaboration and shared value across the healthcare ecosystem. With connections to over 95% of payers, more than 3 million providers, and over 2,000 trading partners, Availity provides mission-critical connectivity to drive the future of healthcare innovation. For more information, including an online demonstration, please visit www.availity.com or call 1.800.AVAILITY (282.4548). Follow us on LinkedIn.
About Abridge
Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. Abridge is now trusted by more than 200 of the largest and most complex health systems in the U.S. The enterprise-grade AI platform transforms medical conversations into clinically useful and billable documentation at the point of care, reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout while improving patient experience. With deep EHR integration, support for 28+ languages, and 50+ specialties, Abridge is used across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient.
Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform is purpose-built for healthcare. Supported by Linked Evidence, Abridge is the only solution that maps AI-generated summaries to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. As a pioneer in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems.
Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS 2025 for Ambient AI in addition to other accolades, including Forbes 2025 AI 50 List, TIME Best Inventions of 2024, and Fortune’s 2024 AI 50 Innovators.
Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation
Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation
