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WWW.DCEOMAGAZINE.COM2022OCTOBER CEO OCTOBER 2022 $7.95 PLUS: HonoreesCounsel30makeDFNext-generationWrestaurateurstheirmovesCorporateAward RANCHTHEKING

Australian-born entrepreneur Bernie Uechtritz rules the high-stakes world of luxury ranches in Texas.

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WWW.VISTRACORP.COM Vistra is proud to congratulate Casey Moore, Sam Siegel, and Yuki Whitmire for being finalists on the list of D CEO’s Annual Corporate Counsel. We thank them for their leadership, service, and contributions to the community and the Vistra family of companies. A TRADITION OF SUCCESS.AEXCELLENCE.VISIONFOR CONGRATULATIONS SAM SIEGEL ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL VISTRA CORP. YUKI WHITMIRE ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL VISTRA CORP. CASEY MOORE SENIOR COUNSEL, VISTRA CORP.

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DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22 017 BYPORTRAIT BERRYSEAN Next-generation restaurateurs keep family dynasties going, while adding new twists of their own. No Reservations portraits by SEAN BERRY stories by CHRISTINE PEREZ AND KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT With increasing accountability in the ESG space, in-house attorneys are spearheading their organizations’ efforts to keep up with pressure from the public, investors, and government. Calm in the Midst of Chaos photography by THE VOORHES story by WILL MADDOX Australian-born entrepreneur Bernard Uechtritz’s vision and grit helped him overcome roadblocks and the competition to rule the high-stakes world of luxury ranch sales in Texas. The Ranch King portrait by SEAN BERRY story by JENNIFER WARREN FATHER’S SON Sam26-year-oldRomanohastakenthereinsatNick&Sam’sinUptown. 54 44 38

CONTENTS 018 OCTOBER 2022 DCEOMAGAZINE. COM 20 EDITOR’S NOTE DOSSIER 25 YOU NEED TO KNOW Eric Fleiss, Regent Properties 28 MEET THE 500 Tracy Skeans, YUM! Brands 28 LOCALLY SOURCED Finley Moll, Heather McNeill, and Marty Washington of Finley Shirts 30 FOOD & BEVERAGE Brandon Hays and Phil Schanbaum of This & That Hospitality Group 32 ON THE TABLE Arun Agarwal, Nextt FIELD NOTES 59 LEADING OFF Kenneth Novice, Broadway Dallas 60 ECONOMY For the rest of the decade and beyond, growth in the state may not come as easily as it once did. KNOWTONEED ZIZZO;JONATHAN BEVERAGE&FOOD TRAN;KATHY TRAVELEDWELL CHAMBERVINEYARDMARTHA’S COMMERCE;OF ROOTS POWERS;DALIA MARKEND ARCHIVESDALLASOFCITY ON THE COVER: Icon Global’s Bernie Uechtritz, shot on location by Sean Berry. PLUS: HonoreesCounsel30makeDFWNext-generationrestaurateurstheirmovesCorporateAward RANCHTHEKING Australian-born entrepreneur Bernie Uechtritz rules the high-stakes world of luxury ranches in Texas. 62 ON TOPIC Doug Moore of Fujitsu North America, Tiffany Woodson of Ink + Oro, and Mark Danuser of Tatum Brown Custom Homes on the lessons they learned from their firt job. 64 THOUGHT LEADER Kyle Wick, 22 One Advisors OFF DUTY 67 STYLE Aaron Fletcher, Fletcher’s Original Corny Dogs 68 GREATER GOOD Joe Mannes, Samco Capital Markets 70 RESERVATIONS FOR THREE Doreen Griffith of ant Thornton, Yen Ong of 5G Studio Collaborative, and Marissa Horne of Capital One share which two business leaders they’d like to have a meal with. 72 WELL MARTHA’STRAVELED:VINEYARD Matrice Ellis-Kirk, Ellis Kirk Group 74 ROOTS Dalia Powers, Humana 76 END MARK Raymond Nasher 74 76 30 7225

LETTER FROM THE

BYPHOTOGRAPHY LAVINELIZABETH

Robert

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EDITOR

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In this, Dallas’ Barbier-Mueller family is on the right track. Alexis and Oliver Barbier-Mueller, sons of Harwood International founder Gabriel Barbier-Mueller, were recently named co-presidents of their family’s business. They bring strong finance and development credentials to their roles, and they’ve shown that they’re just as bold as their father when it comes to thinking big. Harwood Hospitality Group, for example, one of four business verticals the brothers run, will open a new 22-story hotel within the 19-block Harwood District next year. Alexis and Oliver have also accelerated restaurant development, with 10 existing venues and a whopping 10 more that are slated to open by the end of next year.

To help keep things running smoothly, the Barbier-Muellers rely on a family business coach for support. “There are a lot of examples out there where second-generation transitions don’t work out, so it’s something we’ve tried to be proactive about,” Alexis says. “My brother and I come at things from different backgrounds, but we yin-yang very well.” Solutions to challenges often involve finding compromise, Oliver adds. “Typically,” he says, “the answer lies in finding common ground.” For more, see our report on next-generation restaurateurs, starting on page 44.

Are You Operating At Best-In-Class

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studies show that second-generation businesses have a 60-percent failure rate, while only 10 percent of thirdgeneration companies survive. According to Harvard Business Review, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. In fact, data suggests that, on average, family businesses last far longer than a typical public company does, and they’re a leading source of job creation and economic growth. Family businesses that fail often succumb to some of the common pitfalls, finds Forbes: poor succession planning, lack of trusted advisers, family conflict, and different visions between generations. Those that thrive are led by creative and entrepreneurial next-gen leaders who have a collective family orientation.

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OCTOBER 20 22 025 story by BRANDON J. CALL photography by JONATHAN ZIZZO YOU NEED TO KNOW The CEO of real estate investment and development fi rm Regent Properties is going all in on a growing offi ce market. Why Eric Fleiss Is Making a Big Bet on Dallas

026 DOSSIER OCTOBER 2022 DCEOMAGAZINE. COM

ERIC FLEISS CHANGING TIDES

The acquisition was part of Fleiss’ strategy to buy office assets throughout the Sun Belt in the next two years. As some institutional investors look to exit office markets in a post-pandemic and work-from-home world, Fleiss says it is his firm’s opportunity to swoop in and buy. “I think there is a lot of noise out there right now when it comes to office investment,” Fleiss says. “What we’re seeing in the market—partic ularly at the high end—is the option to buy topnotch assets at what we think are great prices. A pandemic followed by inflation and then a credit crunch; we think this is the perfect time to be putting the pedal to the metal.”

LEGACY CENTRAL Sitting just off North Central Expressway in Plano, Legacy Central is an technology-oriented85-acre, office and mixed-use campus redeveloped by Regent Properties and comprise of four existing office buildings totaling 1 million square feet of office space.

And what about—as some in the industry are projecting—a possible recession? “The intrinsic growth of the Dallas market, coupled with relo cations to North Texas, which we don’t think will slow any time soon, is the winning formula we’re willing to hedge our bets on,” Fleiss says.

“I may have a freshly minted Texas driver’s li cense, but our company has been doing busi ness in Texas for more than 25 years,” he says. Fleiss developed his no-nonsense bravado growing up in New York City. At 22, he began his career pitching tech assets and business plans to senior leaders at Walt Disney Co. As part of a selective leadership program at the company, Fleiss gained admission into Harvard Business School to pursue his MBA. It was during his time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was first introduced to—and gained an appreciation for— commercial real estate. “I think I was the only kid born in NYC who didn’t know commercial real estate was a possible career path until busi ness school,” Fleiss jokes. After dabbling in retail and shopping center operations at Sydney, Australia-based West field Corp., Fleiss joined Regent Properties in 2005 as a partner with an ownership stake in the firm. At the time, the company had three employees. Under Fleiss’ stewardship as managing director, it has grown to nine offices and 94 employees.

“The intrinsic growth of the Dallas market, coupled with relocations to North Texas, is the winning formula.”

The company is taking markets.onfocusingapproachcontrarianaggressive,anandSunBelt

An iconic 50-story office tower located in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, Trammell Crow Center was acquired by Regent Properties in March for an estimated $600 million.

ONE CENTERPANORAMA Built in 1999 and renovated in 2015, One Panorama Center is an eight-story low-rise office building in Irving with 208,450 square feet of space.

CROWTRAMMELLCENTER

Regent boasts $4 billion in assets under man agement and more than 26 million square feet of commercial space in its portfolio. It’s an operator and fund manager with retail, residential, and office holdings concentrated in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Austin, Houston, and Dallas. In 2016, Regent purchased a technology park in Plano that once housed Texas Instru ments and turned it into a campus that’s now home to Samsung, Peloton Interactive, and Fred die Mac. The $300 million Legacy Central offers about 1 million square feet in four buildings and, on an 85-acre site, plenty of room to grow. “It’s one of our best-performing properties across our entire portfolio,” Fleiss says. Another top performer for Regent is Tram mell Crow Center, which it acquired in March. Although the terms of the sale of the 50-story, 1.2-million-square-foot property were not dis closed, insiders say the iconic Dallas Arts District tower fetched a hefty $600 million price tag. “We have strong convictions on what works for commercial property investment,” Fleiss says. “Trophy properties like Trammell Crow Center will continue to do well, despite all of the conversations around work-from-home. Our in vestment team looks at high profile, well-located Class AA office space as huge opportunities.”

a slow return to office be damned.regent Properties CEO Eric Fleiss is bullish on opportunities in the Dallas office market. He is so confident, he established a second head quarters here last September and moved his family from Los Angeles to call Big D home.

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FIRST JOB: “I worked retail at Casual Corner and babysat in high school. Post-college, I was an auditor for PWC.”

when the sportswear label they worked for folded in 1995, Finley Moll and Heather McNeill launched Dallas-based Finley Shirts. “The reps we worked with really wanted us to get going, and said, ‘We’ll make room for you,’” Moll says. A designer by trade, Moll created the brand’s first line and quickly realized its crisp, white dress shirts were best sellers. “That’s when we started to get some traction and evolved our style around that product line,” she says. The company designs and makes shirts and shirt dresses for Neiman Marcus and Tootsies, manufacturing its garments entirely in DFW. Finley Shirts added a third exec, Marty Washington, in 2006. The company has produced 180 designs in 2022, using many fabrics specially created for the brand. “Every shirt has a reason, and every shirt appeals to different people,” Washington says. —Suzanne Crow

MUST-READ: “I recommend The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath. It’s about being more intentional in identifying memorable and lifechanging moments and how we can increase the likelihood of creating these moments.”

EDUCATION: University of (BS-Accounting)Lehigh(MBA-Finance),PittsburghUniversity BIRTHPLACE: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

DREAM TEAM From left: HeatherFinleyWashington,MartyMoll,andMcNeillrunthingsatFinleyShirts.

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INDUSTRY CHANGE: “Across all industries, we need to see more women in board rooms and in the C-Suite.”

PROUD MOMENT: “Despite a challenging operating environment, we Chief Operating Officer and Chief People Officer YUM! BRANDS

028 DOSSIER in her dual position as chief operating officer and chief people officer, Tracy Skeans has her hands in many sectors of Yum! Brands, the company behind KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and more. Along with having global responsibility for leading cross-brand collaboration, she oversees business transformation, food safety, human re sources, equity and inclusion, and communications. Skeans said she has learned that it’s important to stay open to pos sibilities. “Early on in my career, I was presented with an opportunity to shift my career path from finance to human resources,” she says. “I ultimately said ‘yes’ to the risks and new challenges in front of me, and that decision led to even more exciting and rewarding opportunities.”

LOOKING AHEAD: “I’m excited about findin more ways to elevate the employee and customer experience and seeing all the opportunities that Yum! and the entire restaurant industry can unlock for rewardingthiswhogenerationsincomingofleaderswanttogetintoexcitingandbusiness.”

MEET THE 500

GO-TO ADVISER: “I have CEOrespecttremendousforYum!BrandsDavidGibbsandthe world-class leaders who serve on our company’s board of directors. Their perspectives on business and leadership are invaluable.”

SKEANSTRACY

FashionWhite-Collar Run by a trio of women entrepreneurs, Finley Shirts creates pieces for Neiman Marcus, Tootsies, and more. 2022

BUCKET LIST: “Watching the Pittsburgh Steelers bring home their seventh Super Bowl win.”

This Q&A is extended content from Dallas 500, a special edition produced by D CEO that profiles the egion’s most influentia business leaders. Visit www.dallas500.com for details.

GREATER GOOD: “I’m passionate about advancing female talent. I serve as chair of the board of the Women’s Foodservice Forum.”

BEST ADVICE: “If you don’t skin your knee, you aren’t running fast enough. I encourage people to be courageous and take strategic risks to advance their goals.”

LOCALLY SOURCED

continued making progress around our business and social purpose strategy: ‘recipe for growth and good.’ Not only did this help us achieve the strongest growth year in our history, it also advanced Yum!’s efforts to support DEI and make continued investments in unlocking opportunities for our employees and communities.”

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This & That Hospitality Group continues to expand its portfolio of playful restaurants, bars, and fitness concepts.

The fourth Sfuzzi iteration serves Italian cuisine at its new spot on Henderson.

Venues With a Sense of Whimsy

DOSSIER OCTOBER 2022030

Early on, Schanbaum and Hays met Robert Colombo, former owner of Dallas-based Italian chain Sfuzzi, whose fi rst iteration in the late 1980s had 20 locations and generated annual GYM GROWTH Hays’ wife, Brittany Grignon, has grown Session Pilates to fouracrosslocationsDFW.

POP-UP FUN The Whip (below right) is known for its themed pop ups, such as Game of Thrones. story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT

FOOD & BEVERAGE phil schanbaum was just 20 years old when he opened his first restaurant, M Street Bar, in the Lower Greenville space that’s now occupied by Sundown at Granada. He sold it a year later and became a promoter at a nightclub, where he met another promoter, Brandon Hays. Together, they went on to launch This & That Hospitality Group and now own and operate six restaurants and two fitness ventures (see sidebar), with plans to open a bar in the Design District this month.

ITALIAN CHARM

WHEELS UP BBQ joint Ferris Wheelers (above) was born after This & That purchased an actual Ferris wheel.

This & That founders Phil Schanbaum (left) and Brandon Hays met while working in nightlife. TRANKATHY

Since then, This & That Hos pitality launched Design Dis trict draw Ferris Wheelers Bar becue, born when a friend sold Hays and Schanbaum an actual Ferris wheel, Pan-Asian restaurant and cock tail lounge Alice on Ross Avenue, and 1,000square-foot bar Tiny Victories in Oak Cliff.“We have a healthy appetite, and we really don’t like sleeping a whole lot, so we try to do as much as possible,” Schanbaum says.

What began as Hays’ doodle still operates successfully today, and Hays remained a partner until it was bought by Parliament owner Eddie Campbell in 2018. After Sfuzzi shuttered, Hays and Schanbaum launched their own com pany. “That’s where This & That Hospitality real ly got its genesis,” Hays says.

031 Besides their growing restaurant portfolio, Brandon Hays and Phil Schanbaum own two fitnes brands. Session Pilates, a concept created and operated by Hays’ wife, Brittany Grignon, has grown to four locations across Dallas-Fort Worth since its launch in 2016. “We see a lot of dualities between fitnes and hospitality, and Dallas loves that,” Hays says. Seeing a gap in the market when boxing brands Rumble and Shadowbox sold to a franchise model and went out of business, respectively, the duo recently opened a gym called Ding Ding on Ross Avenue. “You look around and see just [two Title boxing clubs in Dallas], and we thought this was a clear indication that there was a demand for it and just not enough supply,” Schanbaum says.

Getting Into the Fitness Ring nightclub stufffor long enough to where it was a hankering for us to have this party bar thing,” Hays says. While they were in construc tion on what would become The Whippersnapper—a nightclub now known for its themed popups—the space next door became vacant. Hays and Schanbaum convert ed it into a patio bar called High Fives in 2015. The Whip opened a year later, combining disco and dive-bar feels. “We took a lot of the pretentiousness out of Dallas nightlife,” Hays says.

The duo also reopened Sfuzzi last spring—this time as owners and operators—on Henderson, re taining the concept’s bones. “It’s full circle,” Hays says. “It’s where we cut our teeth. Now, we get to come back and do it with our experience.” Next up? A neighborhood bar called Double D’s (short for Design District) will open on Riv erfront Boulevard this month, catering in part to restaurant-goers seeking post-dinner drinks. It will serve pizza and sundaes, in addition to a wide range of cocktails and an elevated wine list. “Every great neighborhood deserves a great bar, right?” Schanbaum says. sales of $30 million. At the time, the two were running a nightclub that neighbored Colombo’s con cept Trece. Colombo shared his goal of resurrecting Sfuzzi, whose owners went bankrupt in ’87, and Schanbaum and Hays wanted to segue from nightlife to restau rants. “It’s only so much fun to ask your friends to spend $1,000 a night for so long,” Hays says. With others, the three relaunched Sfuzzi in ’09. Despite its success— generating more than $200,000 a month in revenue, Hays says—the operating company over it went bankrupt after four years. Several members of the Sfuzzi team also launched Uptown’s Stan dard Pour a year prior. Hays drew out the concept on a napkin and created the food program with Schanbaum and others, partnering with mixologist Brian McCullough for the extensive cocktail menu.

DOSSIER

The group’s fi rst concept, a New American bar and restaurant called So & So’s on McKin ney Avenue, opened in 2014. “We saw a truck pass by and were like, ‘We need something like so and so’s and sons,’” Schanbaum says. “Then we thought, ‘Why don’t we just call it So & So’s?’” The venue closed in 2017—after he and Hays opened two more bars on Henderson Avenue. The duo jumped on an opportunity to tap softly into their roots. “We’d been away from the FAST FRIENDS

DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22 OFCOURTESYPHOTOS HOSPITALITYTHAT&THIS AND

The Nextt CEO and Dallas Park Board president talks about carbon credits and the forthcoming 110-acre Parkdale Lake Park.

here’s the thing people have figured out about Arun Agarwal: he will step up to serve where he thinks he can make an im pact. He has been doing so since he arrived in the United States from India to attend gradu ate school in New Hampshire when his class mates put his name down to be president of the graduate student association without his knowledge. He accepted the opportuni ty to serve—and has been doing so ever since. We met for lunch at Park House on a hot late-August day and were instantly refreshed by some house-made guacamole. He ordered his usual, the vegan meatballs, while I opted for the restaurant’s poke bowl. After giving me a few Indian food recommendations and telling me about his daughter’s progress toward becoming a cardiologist, we began talking about his latest passion: Dallas parks. Agarwal’s day job is the CEO of the wildly suc cessful Dallas-based textile company Nextt, but he ha s been on the Dallas Park Board as Mayor Eric Johnson’s representative for two years and was voted president of the board in September 2021. He is bringing his business operations expertise to the role, pushing for more awareness, responsive ness, and better reservation systems, but he’ll call in a downed limb on Katy Trail if he sees one. “I did not look for it at all,” he says of his volun teer leadership. “I have always tried to take a very background role, but when opportunities come, we can make a difference.”

Greenspace isn’t the only area where Agar wal has been asked to serve. Gov. Greg Abbott recently named him vice chairman of the Texas Economic Development Corp. Board of Direc tors. The organization is part of a public-private partnership marketing the state domestically and globally as an excellent place for business.

SavvyBringsAgarwalBusinesstoGreenspace

Top of mind for Agarwal is Parkdale Lake Park, a 110-acre plot given to the City of Dallas by Oncor, the largest donation to the city since 1938.

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story by WILL MADDOX illustration by JAKE MEYERS

Agarwal accompanied Abbott on a trip to In dia in 2018 to promote Texas business, making Abbott the fi rst U.S. governor to meet with the Indian prime minister. Agarwal is bullish on Texas’ future interna tional partnerships and economic prowess but works to balance development with protecting our city’s greatest natural assets. He sees his service as a karmic move that will come back to benefit him. So far, he says, he has been right. “A lot of times, life has pushed me into leadership,” he says. “It has made me take responsibility and make it happen.”

ON THE TABLE Arun

The CEO also aims to resurrect a plan to sell carbon credits to protect Dallas’ greenspace, in cluding the country’s largest urban forest. First introduced in 2008, the plan lets businesses that want to offset their emissions purchase credits that will be used to fund the preservation of the Great Trinity Forest. Agarwal says the program could raise $20 million to $25 million over the next 40 years. The city council and park board are exploring the plan’s feasibility.

Agarwal personally paid for conceptual draw ings of the park and joined Lyda Hill Philanthro pies, which provided funds to finish the master plans for Parkdale. Protecting parks and green space is not antithetical to growing business, he says. One can lead to the other.

The park will include a flood mitigation lake and help the city complete The Loop, a 50-mile trail connecting the Great Trinity Forest to White Rock Lake, the Trinity River, and Uptown.

Morgan Spann, Lindsay Benedetto, Maria Hobby Debbie Carimi, Tony Carimi Marissa Horne, Michael Horne Miki Woodard

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more than 500 guests gathered in late july to celebrate the fifth annual Nonprofit and Corpoate Citizenship Awards, presented by D CEO in part nership with Communities Foundation of Texas. The festive evening, held at The Factory in Deep Ellum, brought together the outstanding leaders, organizations, and corporate citizens who are working tirelessly to make Dallas even better. A highlight of the evening was when Trusted World’s Caleb Wood received a standing ovation after winning the Volunteer of the Year award. Thank you to title sponsors Amazon, Capital One, Communities Foundation of Texas, Texas Mutual Insurance, and Tito’s for their help in making this inspirational event possible.

D CEO’s Nonprofit and CitizenshipCorporateAwards

AGENDA

Andi CalebWood,Wood Carole West, Tori LeighJohnMannes,Owen,Fugger-Smith

Kristen Pereira, Christine Vu, Roscoe Compton-Kelly, Devon Lockard Tracey Doi, Mylihn Luong

Al MattMartyMontoya,Turco,Bowman

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a crowd of more than 500 gathered at the hilton anatole on June 29 for D CEO’s sixth annual Women’s Leadership Symposium. Before breakfast and networking, attendees participated in a pre-session mindfulness meditation with Leah Frazier. Then it was on with the show, with dynamic, inspirational speakers who shared their insights and real talk about career challenges and opportunities. A huge thank you to our title sponsors—Am azon, Group, Scouts of Texas, Munck Wil son to speakers, event LaValle, Mitchell, Strauss Sly, Alex Lane, Jessica Segebarth, Allison

JordanJennifer Roye, Cheryl Stagner, Holli McCasland

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panelists, and attendees for making this

Mandala, Samsung, Texas Women’s Foundation, Texas Woman’s University, and Truist Bank—and

Lauren

one to remember. D CEO’s SymposiumLeadershipWomen’s2022 Jennifer Bartkowski, Ashley O’Neill, Kim Lyle Terri Leib, Natalie Boyle, Christine Thomas Stephanie Robinson, Jenny VeronicaMartinez,Torres Hazley Jocelyn Phillips, Devin Butler, Joelle Hinds SandraJanetMcNeil,Lee, Renda Mathew Cynt AlisonMarshall,Battiste Torrie Clark, Taylor Torcellini Amy

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ROGGE DUNN, CEO, ROGGE DUNN GROUP

Why do newscasts feature a deadly car wreck in a distant city? Why do people on the opposite side of a road slow down and take a long look at a crash? It’s not blocking their path or involving them in any way. Yet almost every motorist slows down to view an actual or possible tragedy. There is no logical reason to do this, but it’s an inherent, deep-seated, primal reaction.

Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies We got our dirty little fingrs in everybody’s pie We love to cut you down to size We love dirty laundry” Great Roman, Greek, and English authors and playwrights use tragedy to effectivelygain and hold their audience’s attention. Viewers and readers want to learn about how the calamity occurred, the consequences of the misfortune, and how same can be prevented in the future. The challenge, of course, is findinga calamity, or potential calamity, related to a product, service, or position when you are trying to persuade. Your sales pitch should describe how a colossal failure could have been prevented, or will be prevent ed, in the future by accepting the concept you are promoting. Show how an executive or senior manager lost their job or how a company went bankrupt by not addressing a pressing need when they did not purchase a product or service like the one you are selling, which would have prevented a monumental setback.

ASK THE EXPERT

Tragedy, calamity, and catastrophe capture and re tain almost everyone’s attention. When you describe a misfortune or how what you are advocating can pre vent a disaster, your ability to persuade is enhanced.

500 N. Akard Street, Suite 1900 Dallas, Texas 75201 214.888.5000 | info@roggedunngroup.com c-level execs, managers, and entrepreneurs make daily sales pitches. Whether you’re trying to motivate an employee, sell goods or services, obtain funding, or win an argument with family or friends, persuasion skills are essential. This article details another proven persuasion technique.

037DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22 ADVERTISEMENT

ROGGE DUNN represents companies, executives, financial advisors, and en trepreneurs in business and employment matters. Clients include the CEOs of American Airlines, Baker Hughes, Beck Group, Bluco ra, Crow Holdings, Dave & Busters, Gold’s Gym, FedEx, HKS, Texas Motor Speedway, Texas Capital Bancshares, and Texas Tech University, and sports figures like New York Mets manager Buck Showalter, NBA executive Donnie Nelson, and NBA Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown. Dunn’s corporate clients in clude Adecco, Beal Bank, Beni hana, Cawley Partners, CBRE, Match.com, Rent-A-Center, and Outback Steakhouse. In 2021 and 2022 Dunn was included in D CEO Magazine’s Dallas 500 list, which recog nizes the most influential busi ness leaders in North Texas. He has been named a Tex as Super Lawyer every year that award has been given and recognized as one of the top 100 attorneys in Texas by Texas Monthly (a Thomson Reuters service) and a D Mag azine Best Lawyer 14 times.

The Takeaway: Demonstrate how people who have rejected your proposal have suffred severe consequences when they didn’t embrace what you are selling.

No study or analysis captures this concept better than Don Henley’s exquisite songwriting as per formed by the Eagles in Dirty Laundry: “Make my livin’ off the venin’ news

Persuasion Skills:

Just give me somethin’, somethin’ I can use People love it when you lose They love dirty laundry We got the bubble-headed, bleached-blonde, comes on at fiv She can tell you ‘bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye It’s interesting when people die Give us dirty laundry Can we film the opration? Is the head dead yet? You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry

Utilizing Calamity

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KING RANCH THE

Australian entrepreneur Bernard Uechtritz’s vision and grit helped him overcome roadblocks to lead in the high-stakes world of luxury ranch sales in Texas and beyond.

story by JENNIFER WARREN portrait by SEAN BERRY

Offthe eastern part of Queensland, it sits north of Brisbane and the Gold Coast. He was mostly raised in Papua New Guinea, with a few stints at board ing schools in New Zealand and Australia. Since the age of 3, he was speaking an older version of Pidgin

Gazing out at an expansive new listing in southern Dallas, ranch broker to the stars Bernard “Bernie” Uechtritz narrates how the land becomes rolling hills at roughly this very point in Texas, unlike the flatlads in the highly developed region north of the city. He specializes in luxury ranches today, but Uechtritz began his career by selling distressed properties in California.

OFCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHY GLOBALICONANDUECHTRITZBERNARD

But the United States was beckoning. Uechtritz was “consciously enamored with all things America,” he says. The eighth of 11 children, he spent much time along side his father, rebuilding U.S. Army Jeeps and exploring miles of steep, marshy New Guinean kunai plains, mountains, and valleys, looking for war relics. The villagers’ storytelling in Pidgin English was always about heroic U.S. soldiers who came and saved their country, saying, “Ol hap man tru ya, dispela line bilong America,” a phrase imprinted in Uechtritz’s mind. He translates to me, “The Americans were legendary, strong, and brave soldiers—larger than life.”

Saturday treks to Lae to watch matinees of John Wayne as a marine in the morn ing, then True Grit in the afternoon, further sealed the deal. At a German-American Missionary boarding school in the primitive, mountainous gold mining town of Wau, he became even more enamored with the idea of moving to the states.

A differenceof opinion with a boss in New Guinea compelled him to venture to Kentucky in 1986. He arrived with a saddle, six polocrosse racquets, and $800. He joined a landscaping crew, Uechtritz has been NewchildhepolocrosseaboutpassionatehorsesandsincewasayounggrowingupinGuinea.

English, a creolized language spoken by native New Guineans. By age 16, he was managing a large plantation—one that was home to cocoa and coconut produc tion, 4,000 head of cattle, and 150 water buffalo.Those early New Guinea days had a significantimpact on his life. It was 50 dusty miles to the nearest town of Lae, roughly halfway between the equator and the 15th parallel in the South Pacifi Ocean, north of his Australian birthplace.

The 57-year-old has earned the right to forecast the future of real estate. His story is uncommon but not entirely unique to entrepreneurs who con stantly innovate and adapt. His company, Dal las-based Icon Global, markets high-end, icon ic real estate; as named, so delivered. His is the high-octane world of large ranches, complex deals, secrecy, and a learned approach that generates sales at prices rarely seen.

Uechtritz’s story began in Rockhampton, Austra lia, a town known for sugar cane, rum, and cattle.

“I see a polo field” he says, surveying part of the 6,000-acre property. The tempo of melodic hills had given way to a spacious, wide expanse of pris tine grass cover, a native Texas-sized prairie grass pasture. Such a large ranch near the lure of Dal las is part of the future of land, as Uechtritz (pro nounced you-tridge) portends it to be.

In managing the plantation, Uech tritz worked with as many as 500 New Guineans from a half-dozen tribes. They taught him quick decision-making and the duty of leading many people—trac tor drivers, plantation workers, cowboys, and the like. “I had to be a doctor, lawyer, marriage counselor, and peacekeeper,” he says. “It was a great responsibility and character-building, requiring an abun dance of communications skills.” He was essentially a sheriffwho had to use farm management skills. The experience also intro duced him to land transactions; the love of the deal took root in New Guinea.

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Uechtritz found his niche by focusing on proper ties others didn’t want to touch. This led him to one of his early breakout deals—the notorious Menendez estate—building his portfolio of deals and then buy ing a real estate franchise. “I was disrupting that part of the industry,” he says. “While others were dodging the repo man, I needed to go in the opposite direction, embrace the market, and figure out how to sell tuff.”

earning the state wage of $4.83 per hour. “I survived in Kentucky and broke through the blueblood veil when I began playing polo,” he says. The strategy of creating opportunity outside of borders, within the cracks, would resurface when he founded Icon Global. Horses and polocrosse have been a thread in Uechtritz’s life since he was young. As a teenager, his seriousness about the sport led to inter national tours. In America, he was determined to help polocrosse gain wider appeal. “As far as I was concerned, I was going to convert the whole world [to polocrosse],” he says. From Kentucky, he traveled around and formed po locrosse clubs across the country and in Uruguay and Ireland, many of which exist today.

IN THE EARLY 1990S, Uechtritz left Kentucky to seek his fortune in real estate in Los Angeles. With his lack of truly relevant experience, getting into the market was initially intimidating. But Uechtritz has never been one to let fear get in the way, and he soon realized the business wasn’t that complicated. “It was closer to trading hors es,” he says. He cut his teeth on the headwinds of a recession, the Malibu wildfires, and the costliest earthquake on record in 1994.

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During this time, he became friends with Peter Radd, a New Zealander who was also working in Last year, privately held matter-of-factly.well,”sellmillion$100seriesaugmentedSandow$240themsoundlymillion.thatJacksonitsCompassPubliclyforpropertydeal—ahighlightedInternationalSotheby’sRealtyitstopFloridathatsold$99million.tradedshowcasedhighestsale,aHoleranchsoldfor$65IconGlobaltrumpedbothwiththemillionsaleofLakesRanch,byaofdealsinthemillionto$150category.“IranchesreallyUechtritzsays When it comes to ranch sales, Bernie Uechtritz smokes the competition. As a expeditionsUechtritzyoungster,wouldgoonfrequentwithhisfather,oftenfindinwarrelicsalongtheway.

lebrity names, stories of Los Angeles, and his brush with Hollywood, Bernie parlayed that for his Texas endeavors.”

Alongside developing Icon Global, he advised Sotheby’s International on form ing a global ranch division. Then came the historic W.T. Waggoner Ranch, a 535,000acre property that sprawls across six Tex as counties. After gaining control of the listing, Uechtritz saved it from being auc tioned offor carved up. The Waggoner had been under “continuous litigation for 25 years,” says Kelly Hart attorney Glen John son, who represented the estate’s majori ty-interest owner, Bucky Wharton. Uechtritz was determined to look past that drama and focus on the land and its story. The ranch was established in Wise Coun ty in 1849 by 21-year-old Dan Waggoner for his six horses and 242 head of Longhorn cattle. He and his son, W.T. Waggoner, aggressively expanded over the years to the point that it became larger than the boundaries of Los Angeles and New York City combined. The pot was sweetened when they discovered oil on the property.

UECHTRITZ SAYS HE findsbits of John Wayne in many of his ultra-high net worth sellers and buyers. Through the years, he has learned to identify and pair the best steward to shepherd the legacy properties. Marketing the massive expans es of land requires both a scientificand art ful approach. “One of my tenets is that ev ery property has a story to tell, and my job is to tell those stories,” Uechtritz says. “In my position, I’m dealing with substantial assets for an owner, heirs, beneficiaries,or conglomerates. It’s a great responsibility.”

The strategy worked, and Uechtritz soon had hundreds of brokers working for him. His purview stretched from Beverly Hills to Malibu, Hidden Hills to Calabasas. Celebrities and other power bro kers became his clients and part of his black book— an elaborate network he’d continue to build later in Texas. He sold his firm,FrontGate Properties, in the early 2000s, freeing him to conquer the Lone Star State. Radd sums things up: “Armed with ce Uechtritz moved to America in 1986. "I have embraced this country and its opportunities, and it has embraced me," he says.

Uechtritz’s unconventional style was ap preciated by the colorful entrepreneurs that Texas breeds, and his timing for targeting the state could not have been better. It was becoming ground zero for one of the most important developments in modern energy history—the shale oil and gas revolution. His ranch niche would nicely complement the land rush and emerging energy boom and, eventually, the energy transition.

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BYPORTRAIT BERRYSEAN

After the watershed sale, expectations of sellers that followed were ridiculously high, Uechtritz says. He and Icon Global had captured “the high-risk, high-reward space that no one had aggregated, whether it was the Menendez estate, W.T. Waggon er, or everything in between.” real estate. Radd was amused—and impressed— by Uechtritz’s ingenuity. “Bernie would get these distressed properties, live in them, and structure equity deals with the owner with a 75/25 split. He was the 75 percent portion, the owner, 25.”

Uechtritz came up with a listing price of $725 million—more than double what others were suggesting—and found a buyer in billionaire Stan Kroenke, whose pro fessional sports holdings include the Los Angeles Rams and Denver Nuggets.

W. T. WAGGONER VALUE: $725 Million | YEAR: 2016 SHADOW LAKES RANCH VALUE: $240 Million | YEAR: 2021 THE RESERVE/SULPHUR BLUFF VALUE: $84 Million | YEAR: 2019 BAREFOOT RANCH VALUE: $59.5 Million | YEAR: 2018OFCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHY GLOBALICONANDUECHTRITZBERNARD

As his list of high-profile“sold” properties accumulated—the Moodys’ Rio Bonito, the Fortson/Carter family's KB Carter Ranch, Kyle Bass’ Barefoot Ranch—new oppor tunities were emerging. In late 2015, global firmAlcoa tasked Icon Global with sell ing 31,000 acres of Texas farmland and industrial assets, including one of the world’s largest decommissioned aluminum smelters. Rebranded by Uechtritz as Sandow Lakes Ranch, it was ultimately sold for $240 million in November 2021 after a six-year mar keting odyssey. The natural reconstruction of the property—14 lakes, tens of thousands of acres of pastoral grasses, sandy loam soils, and its massive water resources—was part of its metamorphosis. Sandow Lakes Ranch was a pioneering deal that went beyond a ranch to include industrial. Uechtritz calls it a hybrid, crossover ranch space. A recent significantdeal for his client ExxonMobil also illuminates the complexities of dealing with large transactions. It requires a unique skill set that involves “under standing the assets themselves to representing conglomerates’ endless departments and approvals, committees, and sign-offs” Uechtritz says. “An initial Zoom call in cluded roughly 30 people.”

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The super-broker’s star is rising at a time when the value of land is receiving more attention, with the COVID pandemic, climate change concerns, the reckoning from more than a decade of easy monetary policies, infltion, and the ripple effets of Rus sia’s invasion of Ukraine. “There is an aggressive awakening and appreciation for the asset class as an investment to a sophisticated, even scientific,financialset,” Uechtritz says, noting that the future of energy and the food chain are both dependent on land— infrastructure development, too. “[Buyers] are no longer a Ted Turner, wanting to buy a cowboy hat, a lambskin coat, and cool boots, with a herd of buffalo.They are buying to extract oil and gas, sequester carbon, capture water, and for renewables. The hybrid space is the most important class of real estate in the future.”

ICON GLOBAL’S LARGE- scale deals and listings make headlines, a recent example being the $200 million Turkey Track Ranch in the Texas panhandle. But ranches in the $5 million to $10 million and up to $50 million markets are equally on-the-money for Uechtritz, along with the hybrid $200 million+ quasi-industrial properties. These deals are not quite a ranch but no longer a mining site (as with Sandow Lakes, for example). Think wind, solar, water, and fibe. To stay ahead of the game, Uechtritz recently enlisted the aid of property and cli mate tech firmLandgate. Buyers, sellers, and investors can learn about the highest and best uses of a piece of property from the company’s land resources data. CEO Craig Kaiser notes that Uechtritz “has been looking at the whole layers of [land’s potential] for some time—the due diligence that a venture capital, private equity, or energy company would initiate for transacting.” According to Uechtritz, his industry is approaching obsolescence and beckoning disruption. He has spent the last fiveor six years working to crack the code. “The ranch brokerage business is about to get a kick in the ass because it needs it; it’s archa ic, defunct, and long f---ing overdue.” The most successful brokers going forward “will be part marketer, have boots-on-the-ground, and be part scientist,” he adds. They will have the best chance of succeeding in a “historic market acceleration.” Breaking through the status quo has always been Uechtritz's approach. And he continues to evolve. It’s no longer about closing the biggest deals, he says. His focus is on quality, not quantity, and value to the customer, culture, and society. And the three leadership strategies he values most? “Integrity, straight talk, and backbone,” he says. Looking ahead, Uechtritz says he aims to deliver value on a differentscale under a new agenda—one that even more deeply reflets the importance of the properties he brokers. “At the end of the day, beneath it all is the land,” he says. “No matter what kind of apocalypse the world encounters, it will still depend on life-giving land. If we start developing the moon, it’s still going to be land—it’s just moon land.”

Icon Global's Bernie Uechtritz has become a go-to ranch broker by selling landmark properties in Texas and beyond. Here’s a look at some of his largest transactions.

stories by CHRISTINE PEREZ AND KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT portraits by SEAN BERRY

THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS IS ONE of the most grueling industries out there. That’s especially true in a fiercely competitive market like Dallas, which allegedly has more restau rants per capita than any other major U.S. metro and was named Restaurant City of the Year by no less than Bon Appétit in pre-pandemic 2019. But it also is a rewarding blend of art and science and allows one to create memorable experiences for others. For some, the business is in their blood. They grew up watching their parents and grandparents build suc cessful restaurant operations and decided they wanted to continue the legacy. Sam Romano, son of industry icon Phil Romano, was seating diners when he was just 7 years old. John McBride, a fourth-generation descendent of El Fenix founder Miguel Martinez, initially thought he’d pursue a different career, but the lure of the kitchen was too strong. For Alexis and Oliver Barbier-Mueller, sons of Harwood district developer Gabriel Barbier-Mueller, the segue into restaurants was an accidental path. But along with managing three other lines of business for Harwood International, they’ve built a restaurant powerhouse, with 10 existing venues and 10 more slated to open before the end of 2023. Read on to learn how they’re all finding their own way in this fascinating industry.

Next-generation restaurateurs help keep family dynasties going while adding new twists of their own.

ReservationsNo OCTOBER 2022044 NEXT-GEN RESTAURATEURS

Reservations

fatherJustOnerelationships.andoperationsbuildingday,SamaimstotakeonanevenlargerrolewithRomanoEnterprises.onephonecallfromhiscompelledSamRomanotojointhefamilybusiness.

OFCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHY ROMANOSAM NEXT-GEN RESTAURATEURS

The young leader, who had ranked No. 27 in the nation as a high school lacrosse recruit, hung up the phone, enrolled in summer classes, and graduated a year early so he could return to Dallas.

“I’d like to think that my dad is sort of like The God father; he knows best, and I know that he knows best, and what he says goes,” Sam says. “These are all his ba bies, if you will: these businesses. So, we’ve always got to respect that. I think what I come in and do is have a relationship with the people who are running the busi nesses with us, the people who work for us, and get to know them on a personal level, because that’s how we sustain longevity.”

OCTOBER 2022046

Many of the people Sam works with have been Nick & Sam’s employees since the restaurant opened in 1999, including Chef Samir Durandhar, who Sam calls “a cu linary genius.” Though Durandhar and other key lead ers are much older than he is at a young 25, Sam says it feels like he’s working with family. He tells them often they are not working for him, but with him. “To rely and to lean on the people who I’ve known forever who have worked in the restaurant has been special,” he says. He sees maintaining those relationships as essential.

The younger Romano became majority owner and general partner of his namesake venue earlier this year, answering a literal call to leadership: his father phoned halfway through Sam’s time playing lacrosse and study ing sports management at Syracuse University, inviting his son to enter the family business. “It just took him saying, ‘Alright, it’s time,’ for me to dive in,” Sam recalls.

ITH A PIN THAT READ, “I ACCEPT tips” attached to his lapel, a 7-year-old Sam Romano listened as Chas Martin, the former manager of Uptown steak house Nick & Sam’s, encouraged the youngster to seat tables. He watched as his famous father Phil, the brains behind Fuddruck ers, Eatzi’s, Nick & Sam’s, and more than a dozen other restaurant concepts, connected with customers. “People knew him and respected him, and they were grateful to be in the restaurant,” Sam says, “I’m grateful that they’re coming into the restaurant still—now that I’m part of it.”

Loyalty has become his No. 1 tenet, passed on from his father. “People will come and go, and you have to cling on to the ones that will be loyal,” he says. “That’s why I think loyalty is king, especially in our industry.”

Now, he’s hoping to leverage more than 20 years of lessons, values, and principles gleaned from his father to help Nick & Sam’s continue to thrive, while putting his own spin on leadership. “I’m not motivated by mon ey but more so making a differenceand making a name for myself, aside from being my father’s son,” Sam says.

So far, Sam has left menu changes to Dhurandhar and focused on sustaining solid operations, with an eye toward potential expansion. “Expanding to anoth er city is a conversation we’ve had, but for right now we want to be Dallas’ best,” he says. He admits to vis iting similar steakhouses in other cities to see “what turns each market on,” just in case the timing for ex pansion becomes right. Already heavily involved in Romano Enterprises, he aims to one day take on an ever larger role with his father’s roughly 25 restaurant concepts. He has also begun his own investment venture (see sidebar), and, in the future, he says, he may guide his children as his father guides him. “Hopefully, they’d like to be in the industry, too, and we pass on the family business and the next generation of Romanos,” he says. In his new role at Nick & Sam’s, he is focusing on

26-year-old Sam Romano hopes to build on the success of his famous father, Phil Romano, at the Uptown steakhouse, Nick & Sam’s.

Making a Name for Himself

He notes that he tries to live the foundations of integri ty, responsibility, patriotism, God, charity, communica tion, and other values that Phil taught him growing up.

DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22 047 Ever since Sam Romano joined his father’s business, he has also goingfind“Butdoes,”investment—anybodymoney“WeandingaresearchespanyabycompanyinVenturesandties,intohelpedoneMerrittSamsavedalwaysheart“HeandgastricanHisSPaninvestmentsmadethrougheponymousentity,RomanoVentures.fatherPhilwasearlyinvestorinbypasssurgerytheheartstent.actuallyhastwostents,sohejokesthathehisownlife,”laughs.JohnPaulofPonyOil,ofSam’smentors,himexpandotheropportunisuchascannabishemp.SPRomanoinvestedDeltaAg,ahempfoundedMerritt,aswellasCaliforniacomthatgrowsandhempasmeansofaddressPTSDinveteransfirtresponders.wanttomakefromanRomanosays.wealsowanttosomethingthtistomakea differ ence for people.” The investments.futureaimsrestaurateurtoimpactthewithside

NEXT-GEN

Seeing steep markups on materials led him to launch a Alexis DallasreturningGenevainMuellerBarbier-workedbankinginbeforetoin2012. Gabriel, Alexis, and abreakBarbier-MuellerOlivergroundonnewHarwood office tower. theclosinginRivierapopularHarwood’sDolcereopened2022,afterduringpandemic.

In 2012, after two-and-a-half years in England, he re turned to Dallas. “We had raised and deployed quite a bit of money, some of it through Harwood Internation al,” Alexis says. “I wanted to be back in Dallas and also work on some of the investments we had done.”

HE SONS OF GABRIEL BARBIERMueller, the founder and chairman of Harwood International and develop er of Dallas’ Harwood District, never intended to get into the restaurant business. But they’re now in it—in a big way. Harwood’s hospitality group (which includes restaurants, catering, and hotels) is one of four divisions Alexis and Oliver Barbier-Mueller lead as co-presidents of their family’s company. They also manage its other three formidable verticals: leasing and asset manage ment, development and construction, and capital mar kets. Combined, the Harwood International groups have about 700 employees. Gabriel grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. He moved to Dallas in 1979 and began developing Harwood Dis trict on the western edge of Uptown in the mid-1980s. His sons took differentroutes to arrive at the same destination. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, Alexis, 39, worked in banking in Swit zerland for several years, then joined Harwood’s offi in London. (The company also has an officin Geneva.)

Oliver, 35, graduated from Texas Christian Universi ty and then worked for Vacheron Constantin, a watch company in Geneva, doing supply-chain management and managing global sales points and inventory. After a little more than two years, he returned to Texas and got a job as an assistant superintendent at a construction company in Fort Worth. “I was out in the field,learning the more nuts and bolts side of development,” he says.

OCTOBER 2022 DCEOMAGAZINE. COM048

Building an Empire RESTAURATEURS

The 400-person hospitality group is one of four verticals Alexis Barbier-Mueller and Oliver Barbier-Mueller lead at Harwood International.

Food at the upscale

inspiredRivieraDolcewasbythecoastoftheItalianRiviera.

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Te Deseo, the eighth concept to open, features Latin cocktails.cuisineAmericanandcraft Oliver development.andtoinMuellerBarbier-workedconstructionlearnthenutsboltsof

continued on page 050BYPHOTOGRAPHY UNDERWOOD,ROBERTPHOTOGRAPHY,GLANGERADLER,REBECCAPHOTOGRAPHY,RIMACHRENATO COURTESYAND INTERNATIONALHARWOOD

Meanwhile, Harwood evolved from an officpark to more of a city within a city. Two residential towers, the 31-story Azure and the 33-story Bleu Ciel, opened in 2007 and 2017, respectively. As part of the shift, the fam ily doubled down on walkability, safety, and green space, and began seeking more feedback from tenants and res idents about what the district was missing.

“When he saw our idea for concrete floors,he literally turned around and walked out of the meeting, saying, ‘I don’t understand that,’” Alexis says with a smile.

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A RESTAURANT FORCE IS BORN

How executiveamongbuildsHarwoodcamaraderieitsGMsandchefs. construction procurement company; his father let him take a shot at Harwood District’s latest officproject, Frost Tower. “That was my segue into the company,” Ol iver says. “Then we started doing vertical integration, forming an architectural firmthat has become the ar chitect of record for our projects. I was largely oversee ing development for the firt eight years. Then the past couple of years or so, Alexis and I have stepped up to head the four verticals, co-running operations.”

The two-story, 12,000-square-foot venue has a huge outdoor seating area, a rooftop that overlooks the city, and plenty of Instagram-worthy settings. The brothers challenged a lot of restaurant development norms, in cluding per-square-foot build costs. “Because we were not from hospitality, we would continue to ask why and apply logic,” Alexis says. “We have been able to apply what we’ve seen with the residential towers, the other restaurants, and offictowers. With that, you capture almost 24 hours of someone’s day.”

Saint

For years, the only eatery in the Harwood District was Marie Gabrielle Restaurant and Gardens. Developed in 1997, it served as an amenity for the growing tenant base. Thirteen years later, a second venue was added— Saint Ann Restaurant & Bar, a restoration of a historic schoolhouse that was built in 1927 and sits on the same tract as Harwood’s Saint Ann Court officbuilding. Mercat Bistro opened in 2013 on the ground floorof Saint Ann Court as a place for tenants to get Europe an-style coffee and breakfat and lunch fare.

The Grove is toofspot.andoutdoor-mindedandogfriendlyItwasonethreevenuesopenin2015.

areasoutdoorofboastsRestaurantAnnonethelargestdininginDallas.

One tenant said he’d love to have an honest-to-god sports bar—a place to get a burger and a beer. Alexis and Oliver targeted some land the company was warehous ing on the western edge of the property. It had close prox imity to American Airlines Center and plenty of nearby parking. They pitched the concept for Happiest Hour, which became the firt project they led for their father.

A game-changer that far exceeded expectations, it led to a family discussion about getting into the restaurant business in a more formalized, institutional way, Alex is says. “We said, ‘This is something that’s great for the city, it’s great for buildings, our tenants are happy, it’s creating visibility, and we’re doing a good job,” he says.

The latest eateries, Harwood Arms and Elephant East, both of which opened last year, kicked offa new segment of Harwood District called La Rue Perdue (translated as “the lost street”). It’s a European-inspired, cobblestone 050 have an opportunity to learn from one another. The brothers use an betwfunplatform,buildtogether“Everyonemore,hiringfoodwhenpeerslookThisseegeneralwheremanagementopen-bookstyle,thechefsandmanagersallnumbers.allowsthemtoatwhattheiraredoingitcomestopricing,buying,strategies,andAlexissays.workstohelptheHarwoodandthere’sengagement een the different kitchens,” he says. “It creates a sense of cultivatereallyAlexisbackhotels.toptouringdaysrecentlyteamcompetition.”somecreativity,camaraderie,and,incases,healthyTheofchefsspentfourinSanDiego,theregion’srestaurantsand“Theyallcamehomeinspired,”says.“Wetrytopushandthat.”

Te Deseo, a Latin American restaurant that opened in 2019, is Harwood’s largest venue to date (14,000 square feet) and a concept that turns the wide-open Happiest Hour on its head, with closed-offdining rooms and four distinct bars.

OCTOBER 2022 DCEOMAGAZINE. COM

BYOPENER STUDIOMEM

Since Happiest Hour, six new restaurants have been added in the district. Coffeeshop and café Magnolias: Sous Le Pont opened in 2015, as did The Grove at Har wood, which also provides an outdoor amenity for ten ants and residents. The upscale Dolce Riviera, in which Gabriel took a special interest, opened in 2016. (It re cently reopened after closing during the pandemic.)

Happiest Hour opened on Texas-OU weekend in 2015. It was an immediate hit, with about 3,000 people coming through its doors. In 2019, the restaurant and bar attracted more than 1.2 million people. It brought a new vibe and crowd—millennials and Gen Z—to Har wood District. And, as one of the highest-grossing bars in the state, it brought in a whole lot of money.

INTERNATIONAL INSPIRATION

Chefs and GMs can compare notes due to Harwood’s openbook strategy. continued from page 049

“That’s when we decided to create a hospitality group as a fourth operating vertical. Oliver and I develop the concepts and manage the growth, and we’ve built a team that’s now approaching 800 employees.”

pathway that connects the Harwood No. 4 and No. 10 office buildings andarwood and McKinnon streets. As the restaurant platform has accelerated, it has moved well beyond providing amenities. “We have around 40,000 people in the district now [residents and tenant employees] and about 40,000 people per week coming to the restaurants,” Oliver says. “It’s huge for us because we’re working to make sure that things are not closed to the district. We are trying to make it easy to get here.” He and Alexis are disciples of a book called Happy City by Charles Montgomery, which promotes the con cept of sparking happiness through urban design. “A big part of it is access points,” Oliver says. “So, we’re adding a new drop-offalong McKinnon Street for Harwood No. 4, like the drop-offin front of Happiest Hour, to make it easier for people to get in and park and valet. We’re also taking cars offHarwood Street to make it moreWhilepedestrian-friendly.”otherstookapause during the pandemic, the Harwood team pushed forward. They have a distinct advantage; they control their own land and financing Harwood Arms, a London-style pub, is among the platform’s most activated venues, with programming hits like live-band karaoke, sports watching parties, and a fun “Wheel of Misfortune.” A Saint Patrick’s Day party closed Harwood Street and attracted more than 1,000 people. The success of the activations has led the Barbier-Muellers to recently hire a team to focus on events—festivals, music performances, and the like— throughout the district. Harwood Arms attracts a wildly diverse crowd, with CEOs stopping in for lunch, couples showing up for brunches and date nights, and college alumni for sports-watching parties. “We have been sur prised by the clientele,” Oliver says. “It’s like an SMU bar on Saturday night.” Elephant East sits within La Rue Perdue on McKin non Street. Inspired by the family’s love of Asian fare, the design concept changed when the squad took a trip to Santa Fe and visited an antiques dealer. “He had this giant elephant out front, and we discovered he had warehouses full of stuff—wallsand doors and arches from Pakistan, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia,” Oliver says. “We flw back with our interior design team and did like an American Pickers thing. Everything was measured on site. The elephant got our immediate at tention, so we said, ‘OK. Let’s bring the elephant here and get people’s attention.’” As with all Harwood projects, Elephant East gets its inspiration from the family’s extensive internation al experiences. The idea for the red bamboo gardens that surround the elephant was taken from a chateau south of France. “It also bookends the red of Harwood Arms,” Alexis explains. “It’s a way to bring attention and energy and invite people into La Rue Perdue.”

2013 Mercat Bistro. A contemporary coffee shop and restaurant, it’s known for pastries and French specialties. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and has a popular weekend brunch.

2015 Happiest Hour. This two-story venue was a game-changer in the district’s nightlife scene. It offers rooftop views, outdoor seating, and a signature dish: the Nacho Tower.

2021 Harwood Arms. This London-style pub attracts everyone from Gen Z to Fortune 100 CEOs. Its programming includes live-band ka raoke, trivia night, and soccer and football watch parties.

2021 Elephant East. A panAsian restaurant and lounge inspired by culture and cuisine from Bangkok to Bali, its stunning décor is anchored by antique wood carvings, col umns, and doors.

Employees also like the security Harwood can offe, with its many venues and built-in tenant and resident base, especially in an industry that’s not especially known for longevity. Alexis says he and his family are in it for keeps. “Our business plan is a generational one,” he says. “We’ll be in the restaurant and hospitality business for decades and generations to come, just like we will be in development and construction and asset management and capital markets. That helps us when people are looking for consistency. It’s stability. They know we are going to be here.”

DCEOMAGAZINE.COM

Over the next 15 months, Harwood Hos pitality Group will go from 10 to 20 con cepts. Up firt is a pizza and martini joint called Poco Fiasco, set to make its debut this fall. It will include an oversized bar and a walk-up counter where people can grab a slice and go. It will be followed next spring by a large cantina with access to the Katy Trail opening on the northern end of the district. Two concepts will be added to Harwood’s latest officbuild ing, No. 14, and several will be housed within a new 22-story hotel that’s open ing in 2023. The Barbier-Muellers de scribe it as “taking a New York city block and inverting it on its Y axis.” Harwood also is getting into the retail game. A small marketplace within La Rue Perdue will offergelato, sandwiches, and snacks. Patrons can also purchase wine by the bottle, coffeegrounds, and sauces from Harwood restaurants such as Dolce Riviera. “It will be like a mini Harwood pantry,” Alexis says. Having a vast number of venues within one neigh borhood allows the company to take advantage of econ omies of scale. It also provides in-house learning and growth opportunities for employees; it’s not unusual for chefs, servers, and even corporate workers to pur sue their interests and shift to new roles and brands. This has helped give Harwood an edge in retaining and attracting employees, including top chefs. “The Dallas market is extremely competitive, and there has been a flightof talent to Dallas on the culinary side,” Oliver says. “We’ve gotten a whole lot of chefs from New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and California. It has allowed us to elevate our standards and expectations—because we have to. Dallas’ tastes and preferences and level of so phistication on the culinary side is skyrocketing.”

2019 Te Deseo. The chic Lat in American eatery fea tures a series of unique dining rooms, four bars, and a rooftop that overlooks the city. At 14,000 square feet, it’s Harwood’s largest concept to date.

From coffee shops to fine dining, Harwood District is home to 10 restaurants. That number is expected to double in 2023.

2016 Dolce Riviera. Inspired by the Italian Riviera, this popular fine dining restaurant has been drawing crowds since recently reopening, after shuttering during the pandemic for an overhaul.

1997 Marie RestaurantGabrielleand Gardens. Surrounded by a lush, 1.5-acre greenspace and tree allee, it serves breakfast and lunch and does a bustling wedding and events business.

2010 Saint Ann Restaurant & Bar. Preserved and converted from a 1927 schoolhouse, it serves New American dishes and features expansive patio shaded by a tree canopy.

2015 Magnolias: Sous Le Pont. A quaint gathering place that serves craft coffees and breakfast and lunch fare, it has be come a popular spot for those who want to work remotely.

ANDOFVARIETYTASTESVENUES

Marie venuepopularhelpedgardensstunningGabrielle’shavemakeitaweddinginDallas. The pubsinspirationinwhichHarwoodintimateArms,opened2021,takesitsfrominLondon. Mercat Bistro is known for its French pastries and specialties like Monsieur.Croque

OFCOURTESYAND

2015 The Grove at Har wood. A dog-friendly outdoor space billed as the andmocks,picnicsnacksbackyard,”“ultimateitfeaturesandcocktails,tablesandhamandvolleyballbocceballcourts.

DOUBLING IN SIZE

BYPHOTOGRAPHY

The cSousMagnolias:LePont offee shop and café also sells unique gifts and quirky cards.

UNDERWOOD,ROBERTZIZZO,JONATHANDRIENSKY,DANIEL INTERNATIONALHARWOOD

“That pen sitting next to that blank piece of paper; it was so stressful, and I just couldn’t do it,” he says. The founder of El Vecino, a Tex-Mex restau rant near White Rock, eventually married and moved to New York. There, he ran his firt eatery, drawing on years of watching his grandmother, Irene Martinez Garcia, lead of marketing for Dallas’ oldest Tex-Mex chain. “She was ahead of her time,” McBride says. Martinez Garcia oversaw El Fenix’s NorthPark loca tion in the 1960s. McBride remembers spending the night at her home, where she would rise early and grab the newspaper and El Fenix stationery. She would scan the paper for clips announcing promotions, nuptials, and relocations and write people congratulator letters signed, “The Martinez Family.” “It was primitive marketing back then,” McBride says. “Years later, when I was working in the stores, people would hear from the waiter or the manager that I was Irene’s grandson, and they’d say, ‘The next time we come, we are going to bring you the letter that your grandmother wrote us years ago.’” He also watched his father, a third-generation restaurateur, rise at 5 a.m. to work in El Fenix’s food prep warehouse. “You learn early on that it is a full-time job,” McBride says. “So, I wasn’t blind going into it.” After El Fenix, he worked for Andrews Restaurants, the group behind Chelsea’s Corner in Uptown, and re alized his true calling. He always dreamed of opening a Tex-Mex restaurant in New York City, so a few years later, he and his wife sold their cars and made the jump. He started as a nightshift manager at an American restaurant, where he met a 19-year-old chef from Guer rero, Mexico, Charley Cid, who became his career-long business partner (see sidebar). The duo’s firt concept was a Tex-Mex joint called Enchilada Johnny’s. “I was the second-biggest user of Velveeta cheese in New York City in 1993,” McBride says with a laugh. He also sold a lot of Dr Pepper, drawing a large Texan following. He opened a second Tex-Mex concept in 1997, be fore returning to Dallas in 2004. By then, El Fenix had grown to 15 locations, and his relatives were looking to sell. McBride interviewed 16 suitors and found a match in Mike Karns of Firebird Restaurant Group, in 2008. “It was time,” McBride says. He signed a five-yearnon compete but knew he would one day return to Tex-Mex. When his noncompete expired, McBride opened El Vecino in 2017, blending what he calls “comfort able Mexican” décor with affordableprices and a solid menu. “Those are the things that you can do, and then you’ve got to cross your finers,” he says. “You can take this same concept, and you could put it on Travis and Knox, or you could put it in Frisco, and it might not work, but it works really well here.” McBride found out the hard way. He opened an El Vecino on Travis and Knox in 2018, but it did not reso nate with neighborhood customers and eventually shut tered. “The hardest thing is to either sell a restaurant or to walk out on a restaurant, because you believe, and you put all your money into it,” he says. He knows he has a good thing going at his remaining restaurant, and says it will be his last. Although he loves the business, it’s not easy. McBride says he doesn’t want the indus try challenges and lack of work-life balance for his two daughters, so the El Fenix family legacy likely will end with him. “There’s a lot of personal sacrificeyou have to make if you live the restaurant industry,” he says.

El Vecino founder John McBride has learned from three generations of restaurateurs, but the legacy may end with him.

The Last of the El Fenix Line McBride once toyed with the idea of

OCTOBER 2022052 OFCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHY MCBRIDEJOHN NEXT-GEN RESTAURATEURS

OHN M c BRIDE COULDN’T OUTRUN his roots. The fourth-generation lead er descends from El Fenix founder Miguel Martinez, but as a young adult, he wanted to be a journalist.

decidedWhenbeforejournalism,pursuingreturningtorestaurants.thefamilytosellElFenix,McBride(inplaidjacket)helpedputthedealtogether.JohnMcBride’sgrandmother,IreneMartinezGarcia,rantheElFenixatNorthPark.

DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22 053

In a perfect Tex-Mex match, John McBride (second from right, above with his family) met his head chef, Charley Cid, when they both worked at a fine-dining estaurant in New York City. “It didn’t take me long to say, ‘If I ever get my Mexican restaurant off the ground, this is the guy I’m going to take with me,” McBride says. The duo opened two concepts together in New York and three in Dallas. Hard times and a fiece work ethic have cemented the partnership. “The bottom line is we are both workers,” McBride says. “We have a lot of backhadtheandthoughttimeswhencooksDayuptowork,hadn’tstories—whenwarpeopleshownupforwhenwe’vehadhandleopeningonNewYear’sbecauseallourwerestilldrunk,wewere10busierthanwewewouldbe,hehadtogotofronttohelporItogotothetohelp.”

A spannedNYCthatcollaborationbeganinandhasdecades.

story by WILL MADDOX CORPORA T E C O U2NSELAWARDS022

photography by THE VOORHES

OCTOBER 20 22 055

Businesses watched the ESG writing on the wall turn into poli cy as investors demanded more than just profits. For many years, these policies were enforced internally. Many companies have been guided by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, a nonprofit organization that created a framework for the stan dardized reporting of sustainability efforts. SASB’s mission is to establish disclosure standards for speci fic industries across sev

As in-housebecomeguidelinespolicy,attorneysaregrapplingwiththeunchartedwatersofESG.

WHEN IT COMES TO ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND GOVernance efforts, paying close attention is nothing new for most corporations. Investors, customers, and society have long ex pected companies to be mindful of sustainability, treat em ployees fairly, and diversify leadership. But in the last couple of years, ESG issues have risen to the top of the priority list for corporations. That’s because many of the policies that used to be internal initiatives are becoming requirements, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcing rules and issu ing consequences. And who is largely responsible for meeting those ESG requirements? That obligation falls to a company’s in-house attorneys (Note: for a list of the winners in D CEO’s 2022 Corporate Counsel Awards, see pg. 57.)

Environmental justice and climate change have also gained importance due to investor pressure. At the country’s largest energy com pany, ExxonMobil, an activist investor group got two members named to the board of direc tors to get it to take climate change more seri ously. Exxon’s CEO Darren Woods campaigned against the board changes, but the activist group prevailed in pushing for significant additions.

Three ways CEOs and other C-Suiters can get behind their outlook:improvecounselscorporatetoESG

Additionally, there are indications from the SEC that it is about to step up its requirements for companies to disclose more infor mation about the diversity of their board and how members are chosen. For example, board diversity stats may soon be required in corporate proxy statements.

EQUIP With consultants.orthetalent,meanchanges.isensureandcounselsregulation,governmentincreasedcorporateneedtimeresourcestotheircompanypreparedforThiscouldattractingmoreprioritizinglegalteam’stime,hiringoutside

The SASB was consolidated into the International Sustainabil ity Standards Board last year. In-house attorneys have been us ing standards like those set by SASB for years in preparation for what is happening now. Without precedent, federal regulators are codifying ESG, and it is the company’s job to figure out how to measure, report, and comply.

When it comes to deepening and accelerating ESG efforts, com panies must fi rst clearly defi ne their goals and figure out what needs to be measured. “It’s an interesting challenge,” says Yuki Whitmire, Irving-based Vistra Corp.’s vice president and associ ate general counsel. “What’s our ultimate objective? How do we figure out what we should be focusing on? How do we figure out how to report all this?”

ASK The public, investors, and the government will forrealisticforwouldprogress,theanswersdemandaboutorganization’ssoitbehelpfulC-Suiterstosetinternalgoalstheirlegalteams.

ICON: SHUTTERSTOCK

At the same time, COVID-19 has impacted how investors evaluate companies with regard to how they treat and protect employees and allow for remote work. The Black Lives Mat ter movement has also brought DEI and racial justice issues to the forefront.

DEALING WITH MANY UNKNOWNS

The amount of resources required for these efforts is bound to increase, providing an additional challenge for in-house lawyers already saddled with numerous responsibilities. “Whenever you go from a voluntary to a mandatory regime, there’s going to be increased costs,” says Elisha Kobre, a Dallas partner in the na tional law fi rm Bradley who specializes in government enforce ment, investigations, and litigation. “A lot of companies put out climate-related data voluntarily, but now that it’s required under the SEC rules, companies are going to have to be much more cau tious to make sure that information is accurate,” Kobre says.

COMMITMENT FROM THE C-SUITE

Energy companies will be under greater public scrutiny regarding environmental impact, while a healthcare system may be under more pressure to make a social impact on the community.

Last year, the SEC made amendments to its fi nancial reporting requirements, expanding disclosure around human capital manage ment and DEI in corporate annual reports.

Earlier this year, the SEC released a 500-page proposed rule re quiring corporations to disclose greenhouse gas emissions. Many companies have already been sharing this data voluntarily, as scien tists say the window for the world to do something about the cata strophic effects of climate change is closing.

President Joe Biden added executive orders focused on similar efforts. The SEC has also recently added rules about talent disclosures and corporate board diversity.

JOIN Leaders can set the tone by prioritizing ESG efforts, providing support for the legal team, and leaning into what is being asked for by investors or required by the government.

Different industries face unique challenges.

Investor and social pressure are mounting, but many ESG measures are being codi fied. So, what, exactly, is changing?

But for large companies that are said to be responsible for as much as 40 percent of the world’s emissions, it isn’t clear precisely what needs to be reported. Some have speculated that everything from greenhouse gasses from a smokestack to the emissions caused by customers driving to a retail location could need to be measured.

Corporate counsels are faced with organizing their company’s e fforts around these new reporting rules, and many unknowns still exist. “It has been a learning process. Things have changed over the last 20 years, and ESG issues have grown from an emergent topic to an area of central focus,” Roth says. “There’s trial and error, but we’ve learned a lot, and we’re making a tre mendous di fference.”

056 OCTOBER 2022 DCEOMAGAZINE. COM eral ESG topics. The reliable standards allow investors to com pare companies on a global basis.

For an organization like Parkland Health, which is publicly funded, there is even more scrutiny. That pressure has led the organiza tion to be on the leading edge of ESG efforts. In addition to environmentally friendly buildings, diverse board leadership, and offering employ ees a living minimum wage, Chief Legal Officer Steven Roth says Parkland is looking at how its hiring practices can impact disadvantaged neighborhoods. “We focus on hiring from some of those distressed ZIP codes to better the lives of individuals in those areas,” he says.’

The rules ask companies to describe human capital manage ment resources, measures, or objectives the company focuses on when running the business. There is only one issue: the rule didn’t defi ne “human capital,” giving broad discretion to organizations to decide which objectives to disclose.

In-house attorneys know they can’t do it alone. “We have to be constantly vigilant and dedicate technology, resources, and know-how to create trust, learn about risks transparently in the organization, and have an ethical approach to business conduct,” says Jayne Rothman, chief legal officer at Integrity Marketing Group. “And we need commitment from the C-Suite to support those practices.”

GENERAL COUNSEL | LARGE Steven Dietz, Siemens Digital Industries Software

The new SEC rules are expected to be adopted by most public companies this October, Whitmire says, and they become effec tive next fi scal year to be reported in the 2024 annual report. But the details of those 500 pages are still unclear for many corporate counsels, and plenty of ambiguity remains. Organizations that have been working toward improving their ESG policies for years are in the best position to meet the new standards. Most public companies are on board with increasing their fo cus on ESG efforts, but the changes are not based on altruism alone. There are economic benefits when corporate legal teams help craft strong ESG initiatives. Better sustainability measures attract new customers and gain access to government resourc es. Lower energy and water consumption reduce costs, and gov ernment subsidies can also increase profits. When workers know their employer is taking time to consider their impact on society and the environment, they are more motivated and loyal, and these issues are also drivers for recruiting talent.

057DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22

For global companies that do business in many di fferent coun tries, navigating the web of trade regulations will be an ongoing challenge, says Steven Dietz, senior vice president, general coun sel, and secretary at Siemens Digital Industries Software. “Vari ous political agendas, trade objectives, and national security con cerns are manifesting themselves in a global economy, making it more di fficult for companies to align to various regional or coun try-speci fic controls,” he says. Improved ESG efforts also connect companies to new investors and capital sources. Bloomberg reports that sustainable invest

DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL OR ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL

IN-HOUSE COUNSEL Charles Boehler, PepsiCo Casey Moore, Vistra Corp.

WINNERS AND FINALISTS

Colleen Higgins Schultz, Texas Instruments Jeremy Spiegel, CapForm Justin Wheeler, Cinemark

Daryl Dorsey, American Airlines COMMUNITY SERVICE Yuki Whitmire, Vistra Corp.

UP AND COMER Savannah Franklin, Pizza Hut Stephanie Culpepper, Lument Samuel Kitchens, Match Group Nick Stadler, Evolon Technology Clinton Willett, City Electric Supply ment will top $50 trillion by 2025, a huge jump from $35 trillion in 2020. Increasing investor and government scrutiny are giving authority to corporate counsels’ efforts to navigate the ESG waters and assemble a comprehensive plan, but it also puts their work un der a microscope that wasn’t present in the past. “It is closely linked to investor relations and trying to figure out the story we want to tell and how we tell it,” says Whitmire. If companies want to be prepared for the changes that are al ready here and those on the way, in-house attorneys must push the envelope to keep up with the expectations of the public, inves tors, and the government. “Serving in this way draws upon our time-tested skills: legal skills, empathetically listening, and ex tensive knowledge of legal and regulatory constraints,” Roth says. “We are the calm in the midst of chaos.” “ESG issues have GROWN from an emergent topic to an area of CENTRAL FOCUS. There’s trial and error, but we’ve LEARNED A LOT, and we’re making a TREMENDOUS DIFFERENCE.”

GENERAL COUNSEL | SOLO Angela Lilly, Glazer’s Beer and Beverage Travis Foster, Work Shield Kelli L. Roach, Black Mountain Sand

COUNSELCORPORATEAWARDS

CHAMPION OF DIVERSITY

Steven Roth, Chief Legal Officer PARKLAND HEALTH

GENERAL COUNSEL | MIDSIZE Steven Roth, Parkland Health Jacqueline Allen, FirstCash GENERAL COUNSEL | SMALL Jayne Rothman, Integrity Marketing Group Justin Ferguson, DZS Matthew Frizzo, Stream Realty Partners

FIGURING OUT THE STORY TO TELL

Samuel Siegel, Vistra Corp. James Balfour, Parkland Health James Bristow, EnLink Midstream Pamela Tronzano, U.S. Dermatology Partners

Ashley Yen, Methodist Health System

Jenifer Grace, LaCore Enterprises Bill Mahomes, Vista Bank Meg Shockley, City Electric Supply Justin Tilley, U.S. Dermatology Partners

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The Texas Model Wrestles With New Challenges

For the rest of the decade and beyond, growth in the state may not come as easily as it once did.

ECONOMY

story by W. MICHAEL COX AND RICHARD ALM

texas went into the covid-19 crisis a leader among states in economic growth and job creation. The latest data say the state’s coming out of the pandemic the same way. Over the past 12 months, for example, it ranked second to Cal ifornia in adding jobs and second to Nevada in percent gain in employment. Nothing unusual in that. The Texas economy has been sprinting ahead for decades—ever since it bounced back from the oil-price shock of the mid-1980s. The state’s political and business elites and many analysts (us included) credit the state’s sustained prosperity to the Texas model of lower taxes, smaller government, and eco nomic freedom. The approach works because it gives markets and the private sector more room to operate. Texas offers fertile ground for entre preneurs to start businesses—and sometimes fail. It’s a place where companies are more free to

From 2012 to 2019, Texas’ labor force grew by more than 175,000 people a year. In the econom ic tumult of the past two-and-a-half years, the annual pace was even higher at 232,000, helping fuel the demand that pushed up housing prices.

POLITICS AND LABOR SUPPLY

A lot went Texas’ way over the past three decades. Trade flourished, and Texans became America’s top exporters. Mexico opened its economy, and we led the charge south. Immigrants arrived, and the state had jobs for them. Energy boomed, and Texans hit a gusher. Going forward, that’s not likely to be the world we’ll be living in. Higher shipping costs, supply chain bugaboos, and trade barriers pose obstacles to imports and exports. Mexico has turned inward under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Immigrants face hostility in Texas and elsewhere. The oil and gas business, booming now, faces global challenges from climate change policies. For the rest of the decade and beyond, the state may find that growth won’t come as easily as it once did—unless private businesses once again reinvent the state’s economy to adjust to new re alities and seize new profit opportunities. That’s what the Texas model does best. W. Michael Cox is professor of economics in the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. Richard Alm is writer-in-residence at the Bridwell Institute.

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innovate and pivot—and sometimes go belly-up. Texas gives workers a chance to find jobs—and sometimes lose them.

COMPARATIVE COST OF LIVING

The nation slogged through two housing bub bles in this century. In the mid-2000s, housing prices rose more slowly in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston than in most other large metropolitan areas—by a wide margin (see sidebar). Another housing-price spike came in 2022. According to the Freddie Mac House Price Index, North Texas dwellings now cost 51 percent more than they did just 30 months ago. Houston housing prices are up 36 Texaspercent.homes are still a lot cheaper than in many other states, but housing price increases are now on par with other top-10 metros. DFW ranked fourth behind Phoenix, Miami, and At lanta—and ahead of Los Angeles. Houston was right behind Los Angeles in appreciation. Texans are spending more on apartment rents, and winter storms and summer heat have made for shockingly high electricity bills. Prices for homes, apartments, and electricity reflect local supply and demand. At some point, these expenses may begin to erode the cost-ofliving edge that gave companies and workers strong incentives to relocate to Texas.

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

RESIDENTIAL STATS

Some new entrants were native Texans, of course, but it’s noteworthy that California’s labor force shrank at an annual pace of more than 72,500 since January 2020 and New York’s by 170,000. So, why worry? We’ve already pointed to one reason—a potential spike in the cost of living. A second concern centers on politics. Many times, winning elections and setting legislative prior ities are not decided on economic issues but on social concerns. Hot-button issues of the day in clude transgender and abortion rights, gun and religious rights, and immigration. Many Texans favor one side; many Texans favor the other. Most companies wish to avoid being dragged into America’s divisive culture wars. They can’t win. They fear repercussions. A particular con cern is whether the political climate will sour workers on Texas, especially the highly skilled, highly mobile tech contingent in demand across the country. Maintaining past growth rates could require Texas to expand its labor force by 175,000 to 225,000 workers every year. If the cost of liv ing keeps rising and political repugnance sets in, that could be a tall order.

Critics are always taking potshots at the Texas model, but it delivers results and draws crowds. Thousands of out-of-state companies chose the state as the place to grow their businesses. Mil lions of people came, too, attracted by Texas’ low cost of living and employment opportunities. The state’s economy looks rosy right now, with grow ing employment despite the pandemic and the worst inflation in 40 years. The threats to the Tex as model are longer-term and, to a degree, specu lative. They center on three broad areas: cost of living, labor supply, and the external environment.

According to the Fred die Mac House Price Index, prices soared in most large urban areas in mid-2000s, but DFW and Houston saw little appreciation. In 2022, however, the two Texas metros were among the large urban areas with the biggest housing price increases. Index data showed DFW coming in No. 4 nationally and Houston coming in No. 6. That being said, there are some signs of market stabilization; in August, the Dallas Fed reported that the Texas housing market is showing signs of slowing, with orpricepreviouswhenroshomesmonths-of-supplytheofacrossstatemethigherinJune2022comparedtotheyear,andsales-increasesplateauingdropping.

A Tale of Two Housing Bubbles

illustrations by JAKE MEYERSedited by BEN SWANGER

“I had a newspaper route when I was 12. I remember barely being able to keep my bike upright, as I weighed about 90 pounds soaking wet. I learned that discipline and hard work are essential to success. I had to get up early and roll papers before distributing, rain or shine. Manual labor at that age is eye-opening. My second job was alphabetizing books for Missouri Book Services. My aisle was S, so whenever Shakespeare comes up in Trivial Pursuit, I have the answer.”

MOOREDOUG Head of Americas Region and CEO FUJITSU NORTH AMERICA

“I was a Stuckey’s attendant on Interstate 40 outside of Albuquerque. I learned to be flxible; I pumped gas, cleaned the bathrooms, and flipped burers. I even had the honor of making the cans of ‘rattlesnake milk’ that were sold as souvenirs. We would get cans of condensed milk, remove the labels, and—oops—I should say no more! Who knows what type of trademark violations ensued? Fortunately, I was just a 15-yearold-kid doing as I was instructed.”

What was your fist job, and what did you learn from it? TOPIC

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Managing Partner INK + ORO WOODSONTIFFANY

DANUSERMARK Owner TATUM BROWN CUSTOM HOMES

“I earned my firt paycheck when I was 16 at an American Eagle store. My job taught me to serve others and to have humility. I also learned the financial ycle; my paycheck just covered my car and gas. This left no money for spending or fun, which meant I needed more. I took a second job as a nanny. My weekends were no longer mine, but my bank account was growing. Understanding the rewards of making sacrifices as a teen was th best lesson I could have learned.”

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064 ost business owners are incredibly resilient and adaptable individuals. They’ve dedicated a signif icant portion of their lives to building an organization that supports not only their loved ones but also their em ployees, vendors, customers, and, occasionally, even their communities. Yet, for many, it is hard to envision a time when they won’t be at the helm, and owners are often unsure how to begin a plan to transition out of their businesses. A recent PwC survey found that just 34 percent of family business owners have a ro bust, documented, and communicated succession plan. Whether a business owner is several years or decades away from a succession, they need to begin planning that transition now to ensure the viabil ity and continuity of their company, protecting their investment and all those who rely on it. Whether an owner has created a company from scratch or led it to new heights, building a carefully considered succession plan is one of the most important things they can do for their business. Here are three key elements to consider when beginning the process:

2. DETERMINE SUCCESSOR.A Figuring out who will take over the business will inform how the transition needs to be managed. Often, the most straightfor ward succession situations involve shifting ownership to an existing partner or employee. In this case, a direct approach is to create a buy-sell agreement that lays out the timeline and process for transfer and the agreed-upon price. Oc casionally, business owners do not have a specifi successor in mind, which can happen if a family member is uninterested or unprepared or if there are no clear employee candidates. Experienced advisers can help facilitate introductions to potential buyers, as well as bankers, accountants, valuation specialists, attorneys, tax specialists, and more.

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3. ESTABLISH COMPANY’STHEVALUATION.

Preparing Your Company for Life Without You

Kyle Wick is co-founder of Dallas-based 22 One Advisors.

Developing an accurate business valuation is essen tial to allow a successor to know what they’ll need to eventually pay to purchase the business. However, ask ing owners to put a price tag on something they’ve dedicated their lives to is not always the easiest task. Although there are other methods to consider, the three most used valuation methods are flw-basedmarket-based,asset-based,andcashvaluations.

1. SET YOUR GOALS AND TIMELINE. Whether an owner will rely on proceeds from the sale of their business to cover their retirement, or plan to reinvest funds into a new enterprise, it is essential to determine their financial goals an craft a timeline to begin a succession plan. Do they plan to leave the

businessIMAGECOURTESYOF ADVISORSONE22

Private wealth management exec Kyle Wick offers three consideration for starting the succession planning process.

THOUGHT LEADER at a certain age or when the company hits a fina cial milestone? Solidifying these answers will provide a foundation for success.

Methodist Family Health Centers and Medical Groups are owned and operated by MedHealth/Methodist Medical Group and are sta ed by independently practicing physicians who are employees of MedHealth/Methodist Medical Group. The physicians and sta who provide services at these sites are not employees or agents of Methodist Health System or any of its a iated hospitals.

Siemens Digital Industries Software congratulates Steve Dietz on being recognized as one of the Dallas area’s Outstanding General Counsel, Large Legal Team. We acknowledge the outstanding legal support provided by the team of dedicated professionals in Steve’s team who have played a significant role in our company’s growth.

Ashley Yen AVP In-HouseAssociateCounsel

www.siemens.com

CongratulationsFINALIST

Congratulations to Ashley Yen on being on being selected as a ﬁnalist for the D CEO Corporate Counsel Awards.

Ashley is another reason why so many people Trust Methodist.

2022 CORPORATE COUNSEL AWARD

BYPHOTOGRAPHY GARZATHOMAS ART OF STYLE 067

“You’re running around and there are things that you look at, manipulate, smell, see, and hear.” He spends time leading up to the event with a group of peers, developing nontraditional puzzles that incorporate all senses. At the event, partici pants have 90 minutes to solve eight to 10 puzzles in six-person teams. The answers are always num bers, and a theme ties the different puzzles togeth er. Ideally, Mannes says, each challenge (which are known for being creative and difficult) requires the entire team to solve it. “You have to make sure there is only one good answer,” he says. “It does re quire some exactitude. You have to make sure that it is unstructured in nature, but the answer has to be something that’s very clear and very specific.” Mannes has been solving riddle-type puzzles for roughly 30 years and creating them for six or seven years. The concept is modeled after city-wide puz zle events in Miami and Washington D.C. Eventu ally, Mannes brought The Great Adventure Hunt to ChildCareGroup in Dallas, with the first event for the nonprofit taking place 10 years ago. “We took the mantle and ran with it,” he says. Inspiration, he adds, comes from any number of places—from new items he sees on sale at Amazon to movies, nature, and more. “You name it, we have used it,” he says. In 2022, ChildCareGroup’s event had 300 peo ple wracking their brains to solve Mannes’ puzzles at The Statler hotel in Dallas. The annual theme was “fun and games,” and intriguing puzzle el ements included observing two bowlers as they played, puzzles themed for classic board games such as Scrabble, Battleship, and Mastermind, and an opening puzzle inspired by the hit gameshow Jeopardy. “This is a charitable event that’s not like others, and not everybody loves it,” Mannes says. “But for the people who enjoy this kind of thing, it’s their jam.”—Suzanne Crow GAME ON The theme for the puzzles Mannes created in 2022 was “fun and games.”

MANNES: MEYERSJAKE OFCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHY; PHOTOGRAPHYPAIGEALISON

GREATER GOOD 068 each year, president of samco capital Markets Joe Mannes creates group puzzles for The Great Adventure Hunt. It’s a fundraiser for ChildCareGroup, a nonprofit led by Mannes’ wife, Tori. “It’s not like a crossword,” Mannes explains.

STYLE ICONS: “David Gandy is a personal style hero of mine. I also admire Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Miles Davis.”

FASHION INSPIRATION: “I’ve always had a deep interest in art, film, an interior design. Lately I’m inspired by New York, Jazz music, and Pitti Immagine Uomo in Italy. I also recently read a book called Black Ivy: A Revolt in Style, which swayed a lot of my current closet.”

STYLE DEFINED: “Classic. You won’t find me trying to follow trends too much, except wide leg pants; I am all in on that.”

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FASHION ESSENTIALS: “My glasses, a ’47 clean up baseball cap, and Checkerboard Vans.”

HOW I ACCESSORIZE: “I have a watch my dad left me that I love. It’s very over the top, much like he was, and com pletely out of character for me but goes with everything. Other than that, I have some rings I alternate, a bracelet, and occasionally a neck lace. And always a hat.”

AT WORK: “You’ll always find m in the same uniform as our employees: black polo, black shorts, and red hat. (Oil doesn’t show much on black.)”

SolutionsFinding Challengesto

WEEKEND LOOK: “I’m probably the op posite of most people, I dress up on the weekends because that’s my time to be around people and go to dinner with my girl friend. So, while my week is usually pretty relaxed, I’m really putting in effort on the weekend.” continued from page 067

Samco President Joe Mannes creates challenging puzzles for ChildCareGroup’s fundraiser.

WHAT I DO: “This year our family company is celebrating its 80th anniversary. As CEO, my main responsibilities consist of strategic planning, partnerships, and generally keeping things on track so we can continue providing corny dogs to future generations of fans.”

Investing in People for an Equitable Future At Yum! Brands, we’ve spent nearly 25 years building a world-class, people-first culture. As part of this journey, we are investing $100 million to fight inequality for our employees, front-line restaurant teams and communities around the world. Our Unlocking Opportunity Initiative focuses on three key areas to help people achieve their brightest future: equity and inclusion, education and entrepreneurship. We believe we are uniquely positioned to positively impact lives for generations to come through our long-term commitment to unlock opportunity. Learn more at yum.com congratulates KELLI L. ROACH for being named a finalist in the 2022 D CEO Corporate Counsel Awards ˜°˛ ckmountainsand .˝ˇˆ

“As a big-time Dallas Cowboys fan (yes, America’s Team), I must include Charlotte Jones, the team’s fantastic chief brand officer. I’d also love to invite Anne Chow, the recently retired CEO of AT&T Business. Both women have so much experience and wisdom to offer. We would have a great conversation about business, branding, and people—with perhaps a little football talk.”

forReservationsThree

“Growing up in Oak Cliff, I would frequent Black Images bookstore, which specialized in texts relevant to the Black community. Sadly, activist and owner Emma Rodgers closed it as many residents fled Oak Cli. Today, Peter Brodsky has sparked a resurgence of investment in Oak Cliff. Accordingly, I would love to have dinner with Emma and Peter to see what magic could be made.”

BYPHOTOGRAPHY PETERSINA 070

DINNER PARTY

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MARISSA HORNE Capital One edited by BEN SWANGER

YEN ONG 5G Studio Collaborative

“I’d choose my wife—the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ vice president in charge of strategic planning, business development, and product management of its IT services. She was the firt Asian female officer appointed and has a lot to share about workplace issues facing minority women. The second must be Shaquille O’Neal; I admire his kindness to other human beings.”

DOREEN GRIFFITH Grant Thornton

We asked area CEOs which two local business leaders they’d most like to have dinner with. Here’s who they chose—and why.

PepsiCo is proud to congratulate Charlie Boehler on being named a 2022 Corporate Counsel Awards Finalist. Charlie is a consummate business partner, essential to the growth and protection of some of the most iconic brands in the consumer packed goods industry, including Doritos, Ruffles, and Tostito's. His legal expertise, talent development skills, and integrity have earned the respect of his business clients and Wellcolleagues.doneCharlie!

Charles & Litigation

B. Boehler Legal Senior Director, Marketing

D CEO 20 22 Corporate Counse l Awards Finalist CONGR ATUL ATIONS!

OFF DUTY VineyardMartha’s Family time and R&R is a must for this laid-back locale, where staffing exec Matrice Ellis-Kirk has a summer home. WELL TRAVELED story by BRANDON J. CALL SHIPS AHOY There are andMartha’slighthousesfieonVineyard,eachone offers its own unique look. BEACH STROLL According to Trip Advisor, South Beach is the highestrated beach on Martha’s Vineyard. DOWN TIME The Beach House, Martha’s Vineyard offers ample space for R&R with the entire family. COZY COTTAGES Take time to visit the charming and brightly hued gingerbread homes of Oak Bluffs TOP NOTCH An Bistrofavorite,EdgartownAlchemy&Bar, offers an inspired seasonal menu. CUISINECOASTAL For one of the best lobster rolls on the island, visit takeaway hotspot Square Rigger. 072 OCTOBER 2022

Located just a stone’s throw from the upscale restaurants and shopping in Edgartown—and a short five-minute bike ride from the picturesque South Beach—it sleeps seven with a pool house, guest house, and main home featuring spectacu lar views of 1.6 acres of pristine greenery. Pulling up to the gated residence, we were welcomed by the friendly property manager, Dave, and beau tiful blooming flowers all around the perfectly manicured grounds. We spent the firt evening huddled around the home’s firepit, imbibing on a glass or two of vino and soaking up the ambiance of this spectacular property. We grilled fresh jumbo shrimp and veggie kebabs for lunch on day two, utilizing the fan tastic outdoor kitchen. After a day of rest and relaxation spent sunbathing and making use of the heated saltwater swimming pool and Jacuzzi, we made reservations for dinner at Al chemy Bistro & Bar for new American fare in a Matrice Ellis-Kirk of the Ellis Kirk Group is no stranger to Martha’s Vineyard. She and her husband, ex-Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, have called the island a summer getaway for a number of years. The couple highly recommends the burgers at Atria and any and all of the seafood options at Nancy’s Restaurant. Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium in Oak Bluffs is the Kirs’ go-to for ice cream, Nomans for live music, and they say the best pizza on the island can be found at the Offshoe Ale Co. For staples of coastal cuisine, Ellis-Kirk recommends the clam chowder at Red Cat Kitchen and, of course, the lobster rolls at Lookout Tavern. She also advises trekking to Menemsha, a small fishing village on the west side of the island, for spectacular views of the sunset.

it was an escape from texas’ sweltering 100-degree heat that lured a few friends and me to the idyllic coastal haven of Martha’s Vineyard this past summer. Instead of staying at one of the island’s many high-end resorts or charm ing bed and breakfasts, we opted for an expan sive four-bedroom residence called The Beach House, Martha’s Vineyard, which we found via StayOne, a vacation rental site offering ultraluxe properties all over the country.

TRAVEL TIPS Foodie Finds

BEST VIEWS Seafood Shanty’s rooftop bar offers local brews Edgartownviewsbreathtakingandofthemarina.

SEASIDE OASIS andbeautifulworld’stomarinaEdgartown’sishomesomeofthemostyachtssailboats.

073DCEOMAGAZINE.COM OCTOBER 20 22 OFF DUTY casual, yet refi ned, atmosphere. The Edgartown Old-Fashioned, Jonah Crab & Grilled Aspar agus Salad, and Pan-Seared Halibut were all standout dishes. The next day, after a quick morning workout at the in-home gym, we ventured back into Ed gartown for some sightseeing and much-needed retail therapy. The most Instagram-worthy views of the pier can be seen from the rooftop of Sea food Shanty, where we sampled local ales. The re freshing MV Ale by Bad Martha Brewery quickly became a favorite. Be sure to take some obliga tory selfies at the famous Edgartown Lighthouse and Joseph Sylvia State Beach, where the views of the ocean seem to go on forever.

BYELLIS-KIRK MEYERSJAKE OFCOURTESYPHOTOGRAPHY CHAMBERVINEYARDMARTHA’S COMMERCEOF AND SHUTTERSTOCK

If you’re feeling super adventurous (not me!), you can also jump offthe bridge that was fea tured in the 1975 blockbuster Jaws. For some thing di fferent, visit Oak Blu ffs Harbor. From gingerbread-like cottages to a flying horse car ousel, the area delivers on family fun. We ended our eventful day by taking a sunset stroll along South Beach, a barrier beach offering fantastic sur fing and a calm, protected pond for swimming. I dipped my toes in the water before finding a secluded site to stare out and appreciate the expansive Atlantic Ocean. There was some thing quite magical and soothing about taking a minute to be in the moment there, miles away from the hustle and bustle. I felt my blood pres sure lower and my worries melt away. A late dinner reservation at L’Etoile Restau rant and its fi ne French cuisine at the Sydney Hotel— the highlight of our culinary fi nds in Martha’s Vineyard—was the perfect way to punctuate our stay. We started with the scrumptious Pan-seared Duck Foie Gras, which was divine. The star of the evening, though, was the L’Etoile Surf and Turf, which includ ed lobster etuvée and an 8 oz. fi let mignon. Our bellies full and hearts content, we returned home for a fi nal slumber in paradise. We enjoyed coffee and croissants on the sundeck, then grabbed a quick lunch at takeaway hotspot Square Rigger for one last lobster roll, before saying goodbye to our home away from home. We’re al ready making plans to return.

POWERSDALIA

“I grew up in Cairo in a family of three girls. My dad owned his own business, and my mom was a general manager of sales and marketing at a large local company. That was at a time when it wasn’t common for women to be in leadership positions. I credit my mother for being such an amazing role model for me. She really helped me understand the value of having a career and be as told to CARLA M cCANNA illustration by JAKE MEYERS

ing independent, ambitious, and driven. When I was young, I dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but at a very early age, I was also interested in math and science. I was 12 or 13 years old when I signed up for a computer science class. That got me hooked. It was fascinating to use technology to solve problems and to be able to program ma chines. I happened to land in Dallas and fell in love with it. Growing up in Egypt, I always saw American television shows and movies. I used to watch Dallas reruns. Obviously, TV is not al ways reality, but it was a good introduction. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are more similarities to Egypt than I had thought, but I enjoy some of the differences, too. Cairo is a very active, busy city, and Dallas feels a little bit more laid back. That’s something I really love.”

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GO-GETTER

Senior Vice President and CIO of Digital and Data Platforms HUMANA

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OCTOBER 2022

She learned about ambition herage,fromindependenceandanyounginspiredbymother.

EARLY GOALS In Cairo, technology.beforeballerinabecomingdreamedPowersofa(below)discovering LEGACY LEADER Powers’ parents on their wedding day (top left). Her dad owned a business and her mom was in marketing. after earning a computer science degree at The American University in Cairo, Dalia Pow ers moved to Dallas to work on a project with Tex as Instruments. She has since held roles at global firms CBRE, Capital One, and USAA, eventually moving into her current position as senior vice president and CIO of digital and data platforms at Humana. Here, Powers shares what sparked her career journey—and her love for Dallas.

ROOTS

POWERSDALIA

We are very proud to congratulate Jeremy SpiegelJeremy Spiegel on being recognized as a finalist for the Outstanding In-House Counsel Awards. We are honored to have Jeremy in the Capform family. Congratulations from the Integrity family! We’re proudly celebrating Chief Legal Officer Jayne Rothman as a D CEO Award finalit for Outstanding General Counsel –Small Legal Department. We’re cheering for you, Jayne! Jayne Rothman Chief Legal Officer, Integrity IntegrityMarketing.com

Dallas’ King of Art Commerceand

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October

ART PARK Raymond Nasher spent $70 million to fund the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas’ Arts District.

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RAYMOND NASHER 26, 1921 — March 16, 2007 story by CARLA McCANNA orn in boston in 1921, Raymond Nasher grew up an only child of a Russian immigrant garment-maker who instilled an appreciation for art through monthly trips to museums. After graduating from Duke University in 1943, he met his wife, Patsy, and moved to her hometown of Dallas in 1950, where they raised three daughters. Over the years, the couple cultivated an internationally renowned art collection, including paintings and sculptures by masters Picasso, Matisse, Rodin, and more. In a 1997 interview, Nasher explained their philosophy: “My wife and I determined that the only art that we would purchase would be things that brought a great sense of love and interest intellectually, or aesthetically, to our being—to our soul.” Nasher made his fortune in banking and real estate. When his iconic NorthPark Center made its debut in 1965, it was the largest climate-controlled retail space in the world. Nasher also made time to serve as executive director of the White House Conference on International Cooperation, as a U.S. delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations, and other roles. His family foundation funded the $70 million Nasher Sculpture Center, which houses their contemporary sculptures. Designed by Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano, it opened in 2003 in the Dallas Arts District.

You worked hard to build your business. We’ll work even harder to earn yours. We’re a full-service nancial rm founded and headquartered in Texas that delivers the products and solutions you need, with the local expertise you want. Texas Capital Bank Member FDIC NASDAQ®:TCBI You youyouscratched,clawed,conquered. texascapitalbank.com

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