David Weekley Homes Hires New CFO, First-Ever CMO
David Weekley Homes named Adam Zylman as CFO and Julian Duncan as its inaugural CMO, expanding its leadership team as longtime CFO Heather Humphrey retires.
David Weekley Homes, one of the largest privately held home builders in the United States, has appointed two new executives to its leadership team as the Houston-based company positions itself for continued growth. Adam Zylman joins as Chief Financial Officer, while Julian Duncan steps into the newly created role of Chief Marketing Officer, the company announced Monday.
The appointments come as longtime CFO Heather Humphrey prepares to retire after 33 years with the company. Humphrey, who joined David Weekley Homes in 1993, held multiple leadership positions over her tenure, including serving simultaneously as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Information Officer. She was also central to the company’s move to employee ownership through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan established in 2018. Humphrey will remain involved through the transition and continue in an advisory capacity afterward.
Zylman brings a background rooted in private equity and investment banking. He founded Grey Owl Partners in 2019 and previously led Sunland Capital as president and chief executive after co-founding the firm in 2009. Earlier in his career, he spent more than ten years at SCF Partners and in Merrill Lynch’s Global Energy & Power Group. Company leadership said his experience building and financing businesses will shape the builder’s financial planning as it expands.
Duncan, meanwhile, arrives with a career spanning professional sports and global consumer brands. He most recently served as Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer for the Houston Rockets and previously held the Chief Marketing Officer role with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Before entering sports marketing, Duncan spent more than a decade at Nike and Under Armour. In his new post, he will oversee brand strategy and customer engagement, a function the company had not previously assigned to a dedicated marketing chief. Both Zylman and Duncan are graduates of Rice University with longstanding ties to the Houston area.
The leadership additions reflect a broader trend among large private home builders to formalize marketing and brand functions as competition intensifies for buyers navigating affordability pressures and elevated mortgage rates. Builders across the country have increasingly turned to executives with backgrounds in consumer branding and finance outside the housing sector, seeking fresh strategies for reaching buyers and managing capital in a market shaped by shifting demand and construction costs.
Founded in 1976, David Weekley Homes operates in 19 markets nationwide and has closed more than 130,000 homes since its founding. The company has been recognized multiple times as one of the best places to work in the country and was the first U.S. builder to receive the industry’s so-called Triple Crown of home building honors, which includes recognition as America’s Best Builder, the National Housing Quality Award and National Builder of the Year. Employee ownership, established in 2018, remains a defining feature of the company’s structure as it moves through this leadership transition.
Chief Executive Officer Jay Brown said the two new hires were selected for their focus on people and company culture alongside their professional expertise, calling their addition part of the company’s continued growth strategy. He also credited Humphrey’s decades of service for shaping the builder’s financial and technological foundations.
According to a press release distributed via PR Newswire, the leadership changes take effect as part of the company’s ongoing succession planning.
