D CEO October 2023

Jeremy Smith looks for promising practices as president of the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.

For an emerging generation of philanthropists and investors, social impact is as important as financial returns.

The Adventures of Longtime Dallas Attorney Tom Luce

FEATURING: 29 Corporate Counsel Award Honorees

The all-new BMW iX and Sewell’s unmatched customer service. Nothing less than extraordinary.

r aising THE B AR.

ANNA ALVARADO, Texas Capital Bank

JAMES BRISTOW, EnLink Midstream

STEPHANIE BYRD, HALL Group

DANIEL CARTER, RailPros

REBECCA CHARTAN, MV Transportation

TIM CHEATHAM, The Michaels Co.

THOMAS CONNER, Mission Foods

JOSH DAZEY, U.S. Energy Development Corp.

BRYAN ERMAN, Matador Resources Co.

ROCIO GARCIA ESPINOZA, Rosewood Property Co.

KARLEEN FINNEGAN, Spirit Realty Capital

TASHA GRINNELL, The Container Store

MAURI HINTERLONG, Heyco Energy Group

CAROL LOWRY, Heidelberg Materials North America

DANIELLE NEEDHAM, Bell Textron

JOSH NICOSIA, Smoothie King

CARRIE NIE, Peloton Interactive

BRAD NITSCHKE, Parkland Health

EMMANUEL NWAKIBU, Kaplan North America

GAVIN O’CONNOR, European Wax Center

CHRISTOPHER PAPPAIOANOU, Envoy Air

RAYMOND PALMER JR., Fluor Corp.

AMBER ROBINSON, Improving

RICHARD ROSALEZ, Samsung Electronics America

JENNIFER SCHULTZ, Randa Apparel & Accessories

JULIE SHERMAN, Lennox International

JEREMY SPIEGEL, Capform

LAURA TARANTINO, Oceans Healthcare

JEANETTE TECKMAN, Match Group

Parkland Health is proud to congratulate

Associate General Counsel

Brad Nitschke

on being named as a nalist in this year’s D CEO Corporate Counsel Awards.

THE HEART FACTS

WHAT WE KNOW

#1 Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S.

#5

Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the U.S.

1 IN 3

female deaths are caused by heart disease each year— a higher rate than all cancers combined.

How can you support the American Heart Association? Get involved through one of our upcoming Impact Celebrations!

Save The Dates

HEART OF COLLIN COUNTY

HEART FEST

November 4, 2023

Legacy Food Hall

For more information, please visit https://new.event.gives/ccheartfest

Every 39 seconds, an American will have a heart attack. That’s more than 800,000 people annually.

43% of Hispanic women and more than half of Hispanic men suffer from cardiovascular disease.

60% of Black men and women suffer from cardiovascular disease.

THE COST OF HEART DISEASE ON EMPLOYERS

$199 billion in direct healthcare costs per year.

DALLAS GO RED FOR WOMEN EXPERIENCE

March 8, 2024

Omni Dallas Hotel

For more information, please contact Samantha Eppler at samantha.eppler@heart.org

CÔTES DU COEUR FINE WINE AUCTION, CELEBRITY CHEF EXPERIENCE AND GALA

April 27, 2024

Omni Dallas Hotel

For more information, please visit www.DallasWineAuction.com

$130 billion in indirect costs per year due to lost productivity and absences. Mission statement: To be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.

Stacy Nahas KPMG US LLP Co-Chair

Susan Wetzel Haynes & Boone, LLP Co-Chair

Rick & Trisha Allen Chairs

Kathleen & Scott Kirby Chairs Open Your Heart

Ellie Huff Baylor Scott & White Heart Hospitals of Plano, Denton & McKinney Chair

150 years of excellence doesn’t happen on its own

Recognizing our employees as the driving force behind our accomplishments

We have a lot to celebrate!

Heidelberg Materials proudly congratulates Carol Lowry on being named a finalist in this year’s D CEO Corporate Counsel Awards. It is the dedication, talent and passion of employees like Carol that have made it possible for us to commemorate our company’s 150th anniversary in heavy construction materials.

With our North American headquarters here in Irving, we’re also proud to sponsor the event as it honors exceptional in-house attorneys throughout the North Texas region.

Thank you for celebrating with us!

heidelbergmaterials.us

Photo credit: Hudson Photography

The American Heart Association is committed to advancing health equity – which can exist only when all people can have the opportunity to enjoy healthier lives. We’re removing barriers to health through work in communities, scientific research, advocating for healthy policies and more.

LEADERS OF IMPACT NOMINEES

Every year across the country, community leaders step up to join Leaders of Impact, bringing the lifesaving work of the American Heart Association into the community. This 7-week competition, which kicks off in Dallas on Sept. 29, is relentlessly focused on driving equitable health for all.

The nominee who makes greatest impact and raises the most funds locally will be named the Dallas Leaders of Impact winner. The nominee who raises the most funds nationwide will be named the American Heart Association 2023 National Leaders of Impact Winner.

Erin Ball McGuireWoods

Cole Romine Escondido Bay Corporation, Front Burner Society

Jennifer Thompson Medtronic

Halle Still Dallas Cowboys

Megan Johnson Omni PGA Frisco Resort

Vicki Scott Egencia

Despite many advances, cardiovascular disease is still the No.1 killer in the US.

LEARN MORE ABOUT LEADERS OF IMPACT

Tim Flaherty Southern Methodist University

Justin Faerber World Wide Technology

Trey Spyropoulos

Toyota Motor North America & Toyota Connected

IN A COMPETITIVE WORLD, THE QUALITY OF YOUR TALENT DETERMINES IF YOU WIN IN YOUR BUSINESS

BLNelson Group draws on their proven Business Intelligence Technologies, Databases, and Processes. BLNelson Group achieves unparalleled results in Finding, Recruiting, and Placing the Best Talent in both Permanent Hires and Temporary Staffing.

We bring expertise and experience in finding the “Right People” for our clients.

INDUSTRIES SERVED

· Professional Financial Services

· Banking

· Construction

· Technology

· Health Care

· Not for Profits

· Private Equity Portfolio Management

· “C” Suite Executives

· Executive Outplacement Services

· New Industries Where BLNelson Group has Exceptional Expertise: Golf Club Management, Golf Pros, Assistants, etc.

14160 Dallas Parkway, Suite 605 Dallas, TX 75254

469.965.1600 | info@blnelsongroup.com www.blnelsongroup.com

“People are not your greatest asset. The “right people” are!”

-Blaine

L. Nelson, President & CEO

‘Jump In, Get Gritty, Be Humble’

in 2019, d ceo published a cover story that included interviews with 32 chief executives who were new to the region. They either accepted new jobs here or their companies relocated here. One of the questions we asked was what surprised them most about the area. I was struck by how many mentioned the deep, hands-on involvement business leaders have in local civic and philanthropic endeavors.

That strong involvement has been key to making Dallas the success that it is. It helped build Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the Dallas Arts District, and the game-changing Klyde Warren Park.

And now, a new generation of leaders are using new tools to make a difference. They’re leveraging venture philanthropy, impact investing, and other strategies that support community betterment and social causes. Bethany Erickson sheds light on the topic in this month’s issue of D CEO. (Side note: If you don’t receive Bethany’s weekday “Leading Off” email, you’re missing out. Visit dmagazine.com/leadingoff.) She points to a recent Fidelity Investments report showing that 60 percent of new-gen investors feel that impact investing can have a higher ROI in terms of impact than philanthropy alone.

Bethany’s story includes profiles of three emerging local leaders: Lindsay Billingsley, who invests in various causes and who founded LAB Strategies to help nonprofits with fundraising and planning; Jeremy Smith, who presides over the Rainwater Charitable Foundation; and Mallory Muse, who oversees community development initiatives for the Muse Family Foundation.

To enhance impact, Muse says it’s critical to collaborate with those out in the field. “We know that we don’t have all the answers; it’s the community organizations on the ground making a real difference every day,” she says. “Those leaders hold the solutions to our city’s most intractable problems.” And for those who want to start factoring social impact into their investment and philanthropic endeavors, she has this advice: “Jump in, get gritty, be humble, and don’t give up.”

Christine Perez Editor

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELIZABETH LAVIN

leader

nationally, globally, and at the regional and community level.

Wayne comes to CFT from his most recent role as a senior executive at the American Cancer Society. He brings a proven track record of building and expanding relationships and partnerships, and we’re eager for our region to experience the impact Wayne has made across the nation.

I look forward to learning from, listening to, and partnering with all who make CFT’s work possible.”

PUBLISHER Noelle LeVeaux

EDITORIAL

EDITOR Christine Perez

MANAGING EDITOR Ben Swanger

ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR Kelsey J. Vanderschoot

SENIOR EDITOR Will Maddox

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Richard Alm, W. Michael Cox, Bethany Erickson

ART

DESIGN DIRECTOR Hamilton Hedrick

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Elizabeth Lavin

ADVERTISING

SALES MANAGER Rachel Gill

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Rhett Taylor

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Cami Burke, Haley Muse

MANAGING EDITOR OF SPECIAL SECTIONS Jennifer Sander Hayes

CLIENT OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Julianne Emeterio

MARKETING & EVENTS

MARKETING DIRECTOR Madeline Alford

MARKETING MANAGER Natalie Swaim

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Katie Garza

EVENTS PRODUCER Kevin Morgan

EVENTS MANAGER Kasey Burgan

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Emma Barretto

EDITORIAL PROGRAMS MANAGER Sarah Masquelier

SPECIAL PROGRAMS COORDINATOR Betty Burns

RETAIL STRATEGY MANAGER Steve Crabb

MERCHANDISER David Truesdell

DIGITAL

HEAD OF DIGITAL OPERATIONS Katrina Foster-Witherspoon

LEAD CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND AD OPERATIONS Riley Hill

DIGITAL DESIGN ASSOCIATE Andrea Chavez

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Melissa Tallo

DIGITAL INTERN Jade Garrett

PRODUCTION

DIRECTOR John Gay

COORDINATOR Grace John

PHOTO RETOUCHER Jasmine Green

BUSINESS

CONTROLLER Sabrina LaTorre

SENIOR ACCOUNTANT Debbie Travis

SENIOR STAFF ACCOUNTANT Randall Rasor

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE COORDINATOR Jessica Hernandez

AP SPECIALIST Ron Dewey

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR Patricia Martin

IT TECHNICIAN Luan Aliji

OFFICE MANAGER Will Smith

HOW TO REACH US MAIL 750 N. Saint Paul St., Ste. 2100, Dallas, TX 75201

MAIN OFFICE 214-939-3636

WEBSITE www.dmagazine.com/dceo

The magazine assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR feedback@dmagazine.com

CURRENT SUBSCRIPTION 800-732-9673 or subscriberservices@dmagazine.com

NEW SUBSCRIPTION www.dmagazine.com/requestdceo

ADVERTISING 214-939-3636 x 128

REPRINTS 214-939-3636

CUSTOM PUBLISHING 214-540-0113

SUBSCRIPTIONS

11 issues for $54 in the United States, possessions, APO and FPO; $70 per 11 issues elsewhere. Please provide old and new addresses and enclose latest mailing label when inquiring about your subscription.

D MAGAZINE PARTNERS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND CEO Christine Allison

PRESIDENT Gillea Allison

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Thomas L. Earnshaw

FOUNDER Wick Allison

CERTIFIED AS A WOMEN-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS BY WOMEN'S BUSINESS COUNCIL SOUTHWEST

Bell Nunnally would like to congratulate the honorees of the 2023 D CEO Corporate Counsel Awards on this well-deserved recognition. These talented individuals are pillars of our industry. Serving our clients and friends of this in-house community is an honor. We are proud to sponsor this important event for the fourth consecutive year.

2323 Ross Avenue, Suite 1900 | Dallas, Texas | 75201 | bellnunnally.com

CONGRATULATIONS, DANIEL CARTER!

We are thrilled that Daniel is a nalist for this year’s Corporate Counsel Awards. our Executive Team. He has played a crucial role in helping us build on our people-centric foundation while also streamlining processes and providing sound legal counsel to our entire team.

“The focus should always be on getting it right, rather than being right. Getting it right requires a culture of trust and collaboration, which empowers others to contribute meaningfully to arrive at the right answer”

– Daniel Carter

RailPros is headquartered in Irving with offices nationwide. Founded in 2000, the company is exclusively focused on providing services to freight, passenger and transit rail carriers across North America. RailPros employs nearly 1,000 rail, transit and design engineers, construction managers, inspectors and field support staff, and provides training and media production services. The company produces technical and safety training for rail carriers, contractors, and railrelated industrial clients, as well as diversified and turnkey engineering services.

story by BEN SWANGER

SURFACE

photography by

“why don’t you go get some coffee while us men talk business?” a creative agency head in the Dominican Republic once said to Marissa Solis. Twenty-three years old at the time, Solis had just started as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble Latin America. The first account she ran was Downy, the fabric softener brand, and as she walked into a meeting between P&G and a marketing agency, those words greeted her. She responded, “I’m running this campaign.”

Solis, who is now the senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing for the NFL, was 10 years old when she left Mexico to come to the U.S. with her sister and mother. Growing up, she wanted to be president. “It took me a while to realize I couldn’t do that,” she laughs. So, she turned her attention toward becoming a U.S. ambassador. Solis has yet to climb that specific mountain; instead, she stands atop the world’s wealthiest sports league, responsible for every major TV and film ad it produces.

In February 2023, according to Sportico, the NFL was raking in $19 billion in annual revenue. During the 2021–2022 season, according to Standard Media Index, the NFL generated $4.43 billion in ad revenue for its U.S. media partners. And per the NFL Players Association, the league infuses $5 billion each year into the economy.

Solis won’t reveal specifics about the NFL’s marketing budget. Besides, it’s not a typical spend and certainly not a standard method. “Our marketing model is not about a traditional value

exchange. Access is the name of the game. The value of the NFL’s intangibles is incredibly high. The love of the game is a currency that we share with creators, influencers, celebrities, partners, and more. We offer access to games, access to IP, access to players, access to unbelievable experiences. In return, the league gets access to a whole new generation of fans. It allows us to work in ways that haven’t been done before and uncover real creativity and innovation.”

After that memorable P&G meeting and running the Downy brand, Solis took over campaigns for Pampers, Tide, Always, Bounty, and Charmin in Latin America. She later transitioned into working on political campaigns, then spent three years at Deloitte Consulting. In 2003, PepsiCo recruited Solis back to marketing to be the assistant brand manager for Tostitos. After running branding for Ruffles and Lay’s and innovation for the company’s core brands, Solis shifted to sales. “Marketing at PepsiCo is the thing—people don’t leave and go into sales,” she says. But Solis did. She turned her experiences into leading the upstart of PepsiCo’s Hispanic business unit, which covers every state in the food and beverage businesses and has seen double digit sales and market share growth among the Hispanic population.

In 2021, Solis joined the NFL. From her DFW home base, she leads marketing efforts, including the amplification of the NFL’s broadcasting partnerships with Amazon Prime (a $13 billion deal running through 2033) and YouTube TV (a $2 billion per year deal running through 2030.) “We have to ensure [our streaming product] is successful,” she says. “It’s educating consumers, driving subscriptions, and crafting the big awareness ads, stretching all the way down the funnel.”

Solis also drives new fan growth, which includes growing participation and viewership in youth, women, Hispanic, and LGBTQ communities. Looking ahead, she aims to tap into international markets. “My job is to build the NFL’s brand globally,” she says. “Establishing branding in Mexico is different than in England, and it’s different in Asia and Africa. But it’s my task to grow those fan bases over time.”

Signing on the Dotted Line

Marissa Solis’ move to the NFL was anything but expected. “I was at a soccer tournament for my daughter in San Diego when I got a call,” she says. The person on the other end of the line told Solis, “I have a great opportunity for you to run marketing.” There was no mention of the company—yet. Solis stopped the guy before he could finish, “I’m at the best place in the world running marketing—there are only three brands I would leave PepsiCo for.” As if Solis was a big-ticket franchisealtering free agent, the headhunter responded, “I’m with the NFL.” After going through the interview process, Solis was offered the job. But her daughter was entering her senior year of high school, and Solis was concerned about the travel demands and missing out on her daughter’s milestones. “But she told me, ‘You have to take this job,’” Solis says. “My daughter sealed the deal.”

#1 hospital in Texas.* Top 20 in the nation.

When it comes to your health, it’s only natural to want the best.

UT Southwestern has been named the #1 hospital in Texas* and one of the top 20 in the U.S. because we deliver on that promise. Eleven of our specialties are ranked among the nation’s best. And for seven years now, we’ve remained the #1 hospital in DFW.

Driven by a deep commitment to our community, UT Southwestern is advancing science and medicine so you can feel confident the best health care is right here when you need it.

Finding answers, changing lives. That’s what we do every day.

Nationally ranked in:

Cancer

Cardiology, Heart & Vascular Surgery

Diabetes & Endocrinology

Gastroenterology & GI Surgery

Geriatrics

Neurology & Neurosurgery

Obstetrics & Gynecology

Otolaryngology – Ear, Nose, Throat

Pulmonology & Lung Surgery

Rehabilitation

Urology

Hesham Sadek, M.D., Ph.D. Cardiac regeneration expert

JULIA A. SIMON

julia simon wears many hats for the global marketing brand Mary Kay. Along with serving as top legal officer, she’s also the chief DEI officer, senior privacy officer, and corporate secretary. Simon heads up the legal, risk management, governance, compliance, public affairs, corporate communications, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility departments and oversees DEI and privacy initiatives. What’s the one thing she would change about the legal industry? “I would continue the work already being done to help expose potential bias and unequal treatment in the legal system,” Simon says. “There are disparities created by outdated notions that we must recognize and be intentional in eradicating.”

EDUCATION:

The University of Texas at Austin (JD), Texas A&M University (BA)

FIRST JOB:

“My first job was at Astroworld, a Six Flags property in Houston. Sadly, it closed years ago. I learned good customer service, relationship building, and that work can be fun.”

BEST ADVICE:

“There can be more than one ‘right’ answer. Just acknowledging this truth allows for an open-minded approach that can lead to better understanding, effective compromise, and enhanced results.”

DINNERY PARTY:

“For my guests, I’d choose Ron Kirk and Matrice Ellis-Kirk. Their combined impact is extraordinary.”

DESTINATIONS OF CHOICE:

“Greece is my favorite vacation spot. I also love Jamaica. My work has tak-

Celebrity Chef to Clothier

With nine restaurants, a hotel, and a music venue, chef Tim Love is further diversifying with his Texas-influenced clothing.

en me all over the world. My favorite business trips were to several cities in China, as well as Moscow in December; the Christmas market is something to see.”

KEY LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES:

“Listening, establishing clear goals, and allowing space for others to shine.”

DO-OVER:

“I am not sure I’d want to redo anything, but I would love to spend more time with my father. I think back on all the great advice he gave me, in words and by example. I wish I could go back and thank him each time he dropped an important kernel of knowledge.”

LOCAL FARE:

“My spot is Republic Texas Tavern and Onēsan Dim Sum & Sushi.”

PIVOTAL MOMENT:

“Leaving a law firm to take an in-house position.”

FUN FACT:

“I am a total introvert. People who know me well know this, but many people assume I am an extrovert because I talk so much.”

FIRST CAR:

“A light Blue Mazda 323. My parents had a Mazda minivan in the same color, and when my car was parked behind it, it gave a Shamu and Baby Shamu vibe.”

A BETTER DFW:

“I think we need to make sure we focus on the development of the southern sector. There is so much untapped potential.”

WALK-UP SONG:

“‘Just Fine’ by Mary J. Blige. It’s upbeat and includes my general life philosophy: ‘It’s all going to be just fine.’”

SPIRIT ANIMAL:

“My older siblings would say that I am definitely a Chihuahua.”

TOUGHEST CHALLENGE:

“Learning how to switch from being a doer to a leader. I love problem-solving, and I had to learn to give the people around me the opportunity to solve the problem for themselves rather than jumping in and trying to solve it for them.”

celebrity chef tim love first became popular for his urban Western cuisine, growing his empire to include nine restaurant concepts. He got into the hospitality game in 2021 with a shipping container resort in Fort Worth called Hotel Otto, then branched into entertainment a year later with Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall in Mule Alley. Now, Love is expanding into the fashion business with his own line of clothing and accessories. “The Love Collection is just the next evolution,” he says. The line focuses on Texas-influenced pieces inspired in part by Love’s go-to look: “Top-level quality jeans, t-shirt, cowboy boots, my bandana, and a perfectly fitted jacket,” he says. The chef launched his first collection in May and unveiled a second in September, leaning into college football themes. Over time, he hopes to incorporate more workwear elements and standout pieces. “We’ll see more clothing in the future that is designed not only for looks but also for specific work scenarios,” Love says.

—Kelsey J. Vanderschoot

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

Chief Legal Officer

MARY KAY

WESTERN WEAR

The Love Collection by Chef Tim Love is sold inside Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall and online.

fourthgeneration leader

Cristin Illes Kahale is a

at Illes Foods, which makes custom products for top U.S. restaurants.

story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT

cristin illes kahale’s great-grandfather ran hurdles for hungary in the 1908 summer Olympics before earning a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry and founding the family’s food company in 1927. “He was a chief chemist when he immigrated, and he created his own business out of the back of his house,” Illes Kahale says. Carrollton-based Illes Foods started manufacturing fragrances for the cosmetic industry before creating and importing flavors, concentrates and extracts for local creameries, bakeries, candy, and soft drink manufacturers. Nearly a century later, it has grown to develop and produce sauces, seasonings, and more for a dozen of the nation’s top 50 restaurant chains and three of its five largest grocers.

Illes Kahale took the helm in January 2020 after leaving a career in psychology and working her way through sales leadership roles under her father, Rick—who transformed the business since buying out his relatives in the 1980s. “He was the first to start bringing in outside product developers and food scientists because my grandfather and family members were always the ones in development,” Illes Kahale says. Her father also expanded the company from liquid concentrates and products into seasonings, marinades, and dry items. He still serves as chairman. “He’s the one that’s more the venture visionary—more of the entrepreneur who grew the business into what it is today,” Illes Kahale says.

She guided the company through the pandemic without laying off any of its roughly 150 employees and responded to the restaurant industry’s quickly shifting demand. “It enabled us to strategically think about the company differently and become much more intentional about how we’re going to market with all of our customers,” Illes Kahale says.

Over the years, the company has commercialized more than 3,000 custom and proprietary food and beverage items. The next big opportunity is in the flavored beverage space. “That industry has consistently seen double-digit growth year over year,” Illes Kahale says. “It’s our strengths lining up with where the industry is going, so we are going to continue to leverage that and look at other ways we can help midsize food service providers create their own beverage platforms.”

The strategy aligns with her philosophies on portfolio expansion. “Product development is the engine of this business,” she says.

CHANGE-UP Cristin Illes Kahale worked in a mental health facility in California before joining Illes Foods in 2007.

Robert Covington Is Setting Records With Braemont Capital

His private equity group, which invests in founder-led and family-run companies, came to market with the largest inaugural growth equity raise in Texas history.

at 24 , after earning an mph from yale University, Robert Covington dumped his doctor dream to launch a software business.

story by BEN SWANGER illustration by JAKE MEYERS

“Who leaves Yale to start a company?” he rhetorically asks. “People don’t do that. I had a screw loose.” But in June of 1999, the former aspiring doctor created Firstdoor, a company that provided web-based HR services. Covington rapidly scaled the company to employ 75 people and persuaded Marsh McLennan, Willis, and ADP to become clients. But by 2001, the dot-com bubble had burst, and Covington was forced to make some tough decisions. “These were people who believed in a 24-year-old kid,” he says. “They were dependent upon the business, but we had to shrink.”

With more cuts looming, Covington decided to sell instead. “If we sold it, we could save the jobs,” he says. So, that’s what he did. Lawson Software purchased Firstdoor in 2001. Ten years later, Infor, a multibillion-dollar software business, bought Lawson for $2 billion. Firstdoor is still operating today as a division of Infor.

As Covington and I settle in for breakfast at the in-house restaurant at Old Parkland, where his new venture, Braemont Capital, is based, the business veteran admits there’s been times when he regrets selling his first company. But he’s all eyes forward now as Braemont Capital, where Covington is the managing partner, recently came to market with the largest inaugural growth equity raise in Texas’ history at $525 million. “I didn’t

expect us to be Texas’ largest first-time growth fund, but I’m flattered,” he says. “That says people believe in us, and they trust us with their money. I’m never going to take that for granted.”

Prior to founding Braemont, which focuses on family-run and founder-led companies, Covington founded the Dallas office of RedBird Capital, where he served as co-managing partner and, later, partner of the firm. Most notably, he spearheaded the first institutional capital investment in Compass Datacenters, when the business—which is set to be acquired by Canadian investors for more than $5 billion—was just an idea. Prior to that, he spent time at The Stephens Group and SSM Partners, garnering a passion for growth-oriented investing.

And that’s exactly what Covington is doing with Braemont. To date, the company has deployed three investments representing more than $250 million in commitments. Its inaugural investment was in RedTeam Software, a construction management platform. The fund then invested in Vixxo Corp., a tech-enabled facilities maintenance company. Most recently, the fund invested in Incline P&C Group, an Austin-based insurance firm. “All the businesses we’re targeting are growing two to three times GDP,” he says.

Although Covington is focused on filling out his portfolio under the first fund, his gears are turning on a second raise. “Considering our pace of deployment, we’ll be looking to raise our second fund in the fourth quarter of 2024 or first quarter of 2025,” he says. Expect the second raise to come in above the record-setting first but less than $1 billion. “We’re trying to build companies that nobody can beat when they’re at their best,” Covington says.

NTCAR Hall of Fame 2023

the north texas commercial real estate Hall of Fame, in cooperation with NTCAR, recently inducted Ray W. Washburne, president of Highland Park Village, and Rex Glendenning, founder and owner of Rex Real Estate, into its 2023 Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame at the Arts District Mansion in Dallas. Former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price received the 2023 Industry Service Award. On hand to give the induction remarks were Stephen Jones for Rex Glendenning, Ken Murchison for Ray Washburne, and John Goff for Mayor Price. The NTCAR Hall of Fame, which was founded in 1987, has honored dozens of legendary real estate leaders who have shaped the North Texas region. Many thanks to title sponsors Energy Transfer, Sunoco, Godwin Bowman, and Sendera Title, along with numerous other donors and media partner D CEO

Betsy Price, John Goff

NTCAR Hall of Fame Committee

Ken Murchison, Ray Washburne

Mike Ablon, Michael Dardick

Kathy Permenter, Chris Teesdale

John Scovell, Diane Scovell, Walt Humann

Kathryn Pruitt, Jesse Pruitt

Stephen Jones, Rex Glendenning

NTCAR Hall of Fame Inductees and Committee Members

Bill Cawley, Colin Fitzgibbons, Mike Berry

ASK THE

EXPERT

Persuasion Skills: The Less “Splainin,” the Better

Psychologists teach us that the more someone talks, the less they are believed. Chris Orlob’s GONG blog on sales presentations is worth checking out. As Orlob advises regarding sales demos, “The more you show, the less you say.” He stresses that short presentations are preferable to long-winded speeches.

As I tell my clients when preparing for deposi¬tions, a short, direct answer exudes confidence and is more likely to be believed by a jury. If someone has to justify their answer, they are perceived as being defensive, or their answer is suspect because they are perceived as doing “lots of “splainin.” If your answer is honest and accurate, you don’t need to defend your answer by giving numerous reasons why it’s true. Consider a lawsuit involving the simple issue of who ran the red light and was at fault for a crash that killed someone:

Q: Did you run the red light?

A: Absolutely not!

Q: Did you run the red light?

A: No, and I’m sure I didn’t run the red light because I’m always very careful when I drive, especially when I approach intersections with traffic lights. And, besides, when I was going through the intersection, I looked up and I said to the passenger in the car, “Do you see that green light?” And the passenger responded, “Yes, the light is definitely green.”

Many people think that the more they talk, the more someone else will listen. The opposite is true. When someone oversells a proposition, the listener will tune them out and their mind will wonder onto other thoughts. There are a couple of explanations for this phenomenon.

First, presenting too many reasons for your argument quickly dilutes your top two or three persuasive reasons. And it puts distance between the

top reasons you mentioned in the first part of your argument. Experienced trial lawyers say you win a lawsuit with your top 10 documents, not bombarding the jury with hundreds of documents.

Avoid Information Overload

Second, as noted in the Jam study, giving people too many options creates information overload. They feel overwhelmed by the numerous choices and choose to take none of them. See my October 2021 D CEO article. Two or three reasons for your proposal are understandable and digestible. Ten reasons why will cause the listener to believe that the reasons you’re stating are too complicated.

Third, when you give too many reasons for a proposition, it actually makes your argument weaker. If what you’re saying is true, and if you’re confident in your presentation, you don’t need to drone on and on. As you argue on and on, your actions are perceived as you desperately relying on too many reasons that start to sound like excuses.

The takeaway: Speak succinctly and avoid long-winded explanations to prevent the listener from doubting your veracity and tuning out your argument all together.

ROGGE DUNN represents companies, executives, financial advisors, and entrepreneurs in business and employment matters.

Clients include the CEOs of American Airlines, Baker Hughes, Beck Group, Blucora, 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 include Adecco, Beal Bank, Benihana, Cawley Partners, CBRE, Match.com, Rent-A-Center, and Outback Steakhouse.

In 2021, 2022 and 2023 Dunn was included in D CEO Magazine’s Dallas 500 list, which recognizes the most influential business leaders in North Texas.

500

N.

What do Hybrid Workers Want From the Office?

Ranking the top drivers of working from home versus the office, common friction points, and top amenity preferences for 1,000 survey respondents, the report uncovered several distinct themes that drive productivity and satisfaction for hybrid workers.

1—CONVENIENCE

Working from home has upped the stakes on convenience. From site-selection and parking to the proximity of resources, hybrid workers expect greater ease of access to the people and tools they need.

2—FUNCTIONALITY

More than flashy amenities, hybrid workers demand functionality. That means quiet spaces, technology, natural light, and well-appointed spaces that allow them to focus.

3—PEOPLE

When many report feeling more disconnected from traditional professional and social networks, casual and intentional connection points are the lifeline of performance drivers including motivation, engagement, belonging, training and mentorship, and retention.

4—PRODUCTIVITY

Just as hybrid work is meant to respond to the several, concurrent demands of the day, the office needs to offer a mix of settings that support various tasks throughout the day including team-based and individual work.

5—COMFORT

Employees don’t want to work from home to be in their pajamas, but they do want comfort. Owning their space or the power to control auditory and visual privacy is closely tied to their decision to work remotely versus the office.

74% of hybrid workers feel more engaged with colleagues when in the office

SCAN THE QR CODE FOR THE FULL HYBRID REPORT.

77% of hybrid workers believe the design of the workplace is important to building relationships

Want to get started on a workplace strategy? Contact Emily Strain, Director of Workplace Strategy at emily.strain@corgan.com

story by BETHANY ERICKSON

portraits by KATHY TRAN

For a new generation of philanthropists and investors, social impact is as important as financial returns. Jeremy Smith, Lindsay Billingsley, Mallory Muse, and other emerging leaders are paving the way.

BILLINGSLEY LINDSAY

After working in commercial real estate for about 15 years, Lindsay Billingsley, who earned both a BBA and MBA from SMU, founded LAB Strategies in 2019. The company helps organizations and individuals enhance their philanthropic and financial outcomes.

STRUCK IT RICH IN OIL AND GAS AND TECHNOLOGY, THE REGION HAS MORE THAN ITS SHARE OF SUCCESSFUL HOMEGROWN AND INBOUND ENTREPRENEURS.

ACCORDING TO INVESTMENT FIRM HENLEY & PARTNERS, DALLASFort Worth claims 92,300 high-net-worth individuals—people who have investable assets of $1 million or more. The region has 4,340 multimillionaires, 211 centimillionaires, and 18 billionaires. As those people begin to consider what to do with that wealth, they often turn to the family office, a private wealth management advisory team that helps families create a roadmap for growing that wealth, sustaining it through future generations, and deciding how much of it will go to philanthropy.

“As the saying goes, ‘If you’ve seen one family office, you’ve seen one family office,’” says Charmaine Tang, a former wealth adviser and president of ORCA, a company that makes family office management software. “We’ve seen a proliferation of family offices in Dallas, ranging from those started by successful entrepreneurs and founders or those that have been in existence for many generations.”

The concept of planning how to manage those resources—and what charitable endeavors to support—is not new. What is new, many involved in family offices say, is a stronger focus on social impact. There are various platforms to leverage. Venture philanthropy prioritizes social causes over financial returns, impact investing involves a broader range of causes and aims for both social impact and financial returns. Then, there is traditional philanthropy. All approach-

es allow new generation stewards of family wealth to satisfy a yen for not just giving but giving strategically in ways that move the needle for communities.

“Everybody gets to a point in their lives where they want to give back,” says Abe Minkara, founding partner with Legacy Knight, a Dallas-based multi-family office. “It’s in our human nature. And I think if you want to give back, you try to do it locally first. In each family, everyone has a personal life story. They all have different priorities on what they want and how they want to improve the world by improving their local setting.”

A 2022 Fidelity Investments report found that around 60 percent of new-gen investors feel that impact investing can have a higher ROI in terms of impact than philanthropy alone. The same study showed that six in 10 millennial investors are actively involved in impact investing.

But for all this talk of next-gen giving, that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been some earlier pioneers who have led the charge, Tang says. “We have some amazing philanthropic standouts in Dallas,” she says. “For me, when I think about impact investing and impact philanthropy from Dallas, Lyda Hill Philanthropies is doing game-changing work.”

Local emerging leaders in philanthropy include people like Lindsay Billingsley, who invests in a variety of social and political causes and helms LAB Strategies, a firm that assists nonprofits in plan-

ON IMPACT INVESTING

ning; Jeremy Smith, who oversees the Rainwater Charitable Foundation, and Mallory Muse, who shepherds the community development arm of the Muse Family Foundation.

THERE’S A LOT OF MONEY ROLLING AROUND IN NORTH TEXAS. ALONG WITH THOSE WHO

“PEOPLE REALLY WANT TO FEEL LIKE THEY ARE HAVING AN IMPACT, OTHER THAN JUST GIVING MONEY.”

LINDSAY BILLINGSLEY, LAB Strategies

ALIGNING GIVING WITH VALUES

Billingsley founded LAB Strategies in 2019 to assist organizations in developing strategies that enhance their ROI—both financially and philanthropically. “It’s basically my construct for making an impact in the world,” she says.

Unlike many family offices, Billingsley says she and her husband, George, take a different approach to stewarding their family’s wealth. The couple does not have a foundation. Instead, they give money to organizations that align with their values, both philanthropically and politically. The political part, she says, is just as important to her as giving to various nonprofits and programs.

“We want to make an impact,” she says, “but then there’s this whole arm of social impact from a political landscape, and how you’re giving to organizations that take on, for example, housing or education, but the policy you’re voting for doesn’t help lift that up.”

As a commissioner on the Dallas Housing Authority board, Billingsley says she often sees how federal policy can hamstring even the best efforts from local, boots-on-the-ground organizations trying to improve the city’s affordable housing stock.

feel a real connection to the organization or cause they’re supporting. Often, when organizations see a drop in donors, she says, it’s because “no one feels connected to the impact that it’s making.”

Billingsley says she finds this different approach refreshing. “People really want to feel like they’re having an impact, other than just giving money,” she says. “It’s much more than just giving and going to a gala or a luncheon. It’s ‘OK, let’s buckle up, let’s dial in, and let’s really see how far our dollars are going, what’s making an impact.’ More and more, they want to dive in and truly understand the deeper impact of what they’re doing.”

Billingsley and her husband also use that lens for their own giving. They analyze how they can use their resources for good and their platform for good, too. For their family, that means leveraging connections in the federal government and among foundations and nonprofits. “I think it makes more social impact—what you can do with a $100,000 gift, or you can change policy, which changes the whole game,” Billingsley says.

The other game changer, she says, was the pandemic, which upended a lot of the traditional fundraising nonprofits were doing. “For a while, the slate was wiped clean, and we really got to think, ‘How do I want to interact? What’s moving the needle for me?’” Billingsley says. “We had to say ‘No’ for a year or so. Now we get to choose what to say yes to and be much more specific about it.”

UNEARTHING PROMISING PRACTICES

The Fort Worth-based Rainwater Charitable Foundation was founded by the late Richard E. Rainwater in 1991, first focusing on grants directed at improving educational outcomes in schools. When Jeremy Smith joined the foundation as president in 2009, it added the Tau Consortium, a program to accelerate treatments in neurodegenerative diseases called tauopathies. Both moves also coincided with Rainwater’s diagnoses of progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare tauopathy.

But even though both programs diverge in the work they do, the foundation’s approach remains the same. “We look for promising practices or interventions that seem to make a difference in the areas where we work,” Smith says. “These are practices that have the potential to make a huge impact on lives, such as helping children achieve academically at higher rates or helping people build wealth through homeownership or a research practice that might lead to a treatment or cure in neurodegenerative diseases.”

“We can’t make the same impact that we need to make, so we decided to engage in that way as well,” she says. “I think that’s something that is a little bit different about people of this generation—looking at the political repercussions and how your dollars can make an impact there, too.”

With LAB Strategies, Billingsley often works with nonprofits to help them strategize how to attract and retain donors. Because of that work, she knows that the new generation of philanthropists want to

Smith says the Rainwater Charitable Foundation concluded that helping improve educational outcomes for children would also mean looking at what was happening outside the classroom door—especially in the realm of affordable housing. Among the wins Rainwater has been a part of is supporting the ACE campuses that began in Dallas ISD. ACE, which stands for Accelerating Campus Excellence, got its start almost a decade ago and offers a stipend to a district’s most effective teachers and principals if they go to struggling schools. It also is often paired with more oneon-one tutoring, but in its earliest stages, it was credited with moving Dallas ISD from having 43 schools that didn’t meet state standards in 2014 to only having three in the entire district in 2018. The same concept is now being used in several other school districts across Texas.

“These school models have outperformed traditional schools and led to practices that have spread throughout the state thanks to organizations

“PICK A MEANINGFUL GOAL AND MAKE SURE THE GOAL IS RIGHT-SIZED FOR THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION.”

JEREMY SMITH, Rainwater Family Charitable Trust

ON IMPACT INVESTING

SMITH JEREMY

After earning an engineering degree and working for Merck, Jeremy Smith picked up his MBA at Harvard Business School. He went on to serve as a consultant with McKinsey and a director with DenuoSource before taking the helm of Rainwater Charitable Foundation in 2009.

MUSE MALLORY

After earning a BA in urban studies and history at the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from The University of Texas at Austin, Mallory Muse was an attorney in New York City for four years before returning to Texas to help lead the Muse Family Foundation.

like The Commit Partnership and policymakers who helped incentivize results-driven practices through state funding mechanisms,” Smith says.

The foundation also works with organizations that help people improve their skills to become more employable, improving wages. That means collaborating with organizations like Phalen Leadership Academies, NPower, and Per Scholas; the goal is to help these organizations replicate and scale.

The Tau Consortium has already funded several projects that have led to treatments that are now in clinical trials, including active trials. Funding from the foundation has also improved diagnostic methods, and the Rainwater Prize, created in 2018, is awarded to primary tauopathy researchers with the goal of elevating research into neurodegenerative diseases.

Both goals also require patience; in either effort, seeing tangible returns on investment could take decades. “It’s very complicated, and it’s hard because it takes a long time to see meaningful, lasting results,” Smith says. “It’s hard sometimes to figure out exactly what it was that created that result, too. What was the magical thing you did—what we call promising practices. That’s what we’re in the business of: Finding practices that make a difference in the lives of people and then hopefully scaling them.”

All of that requires large pools of philanthropic dollars, Smith acknowledges. “But we also recognize that large pools of philanthropic dollars are exceedingly rare, so we try to invest the ones we have wisely,” he says.

DECADES-LONG PERSISTENCE AND BIG-DOLLAR BETS

The Muse Family Foundation, Mallory Muse says, believes that everyone deserves equal access to opportunity. With that goal in mind, the foundation forms strategic partnerships with local organizations that are looking at equitable community development, affordable housing, education, and workforce training in innovative ways.

But not long ago, honest talk about the needs of Dallas prompted a shift in strategy for the foundation, which had focused largely on grantmaking for education initiatives for 20 years.

“About four years ago, our strategy shifted after an intensive board retreat where we took a hard look at our resources and some of the challenges in our own backyard,” she says. “We studied data around economic insecurity in Dallas, as well as the structural barriers and systemic inequalities that have led to poverty in our communities.”

That led to a realization that to move the needle in the foundation’s longstanding focus, it would also need to address those barriers. “We also accepted that working for long-term, sustainable change would require decades-long persistence, collaboration, and big-dollar bets,” Muse says. The foundation began to use impact investing as a tool to amplify its yearly grantmaking. “And we committed to focus on opportunities that leveraged all of our resources to promote access to opportunity and economic mobility in our city.”

The organization is especially interested in increasing affordable housing in Dallas. Muse points to figures from the Dallas Housing Coalition and the Child Poverty Action Lab that show that almost 50 percent of renters in Dallas pay more than they can afford on rent, and home ownership is out of reach. Dallas is short almost 33,600 rental units for households making at or below 50 percent of the area median income. “If we do nothing, that gap grows to 83,500 units by 2030,” Muse says.

The foundation is supporting development in southern Dallas, where it made a low-interest, pre-development loan to a community development housing corporation. That loan allowed the group to access traditional construction financing. “We coupled that investment with a capacity building grant to hire another project manager to help execute on their pipeline of projects,” Muse says.

But they didn’t stop there. The funds funneled to that organization allowed the nonprofit to grow; it has since nearly paid off that initial loan, plus interest. That means the impact investing the foundation did was also sustainable, Muse says. “We’re here to put up risk capital if it means that an organization or a project can get to a place where it isn’t wholly reliant on grant dollars to survive,” she says.

All told, the foundation has analyzed more than 50 projects, looking at their financial stability, previous projects, sustainability, and how their projects can be scaled—just like a traditional investment. On the social impact side, the foundation looked at the organization’s mission and theory of change.

Accounting for the social impact of a project doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition when it comes to ROI, but it can be, Muse says. Affordable housing, for instance, can mean lower yields for investors than what market-rate housing offers.

“But that’s where philanthropy plays a critical role in taking on risks or accepting below market

rates of return where other limited partnerships can’t,” she says. “That is exactly why foundations should step into the void, to catalyze outside investment in a social impact project.”

“PHILANTHROPY PLAYS A CRITICAL ROLE IN TAKING ON RISKS OR ACCEPTING BELOW-MARKET RATES OF RETURN.”

THE ADVENTURES OF

He was Ross Perot Sr.’s legal fixer for 50 years. Now, the longtime Dallas attorney and civic leader is working to ensure a better future for Texas.

story by WILL MADDOX

illustration by PJ LOUGHRAN

R

ROSS PEROT SR. PULLED UP TO THOMAS LUCE III’S house one Saturday morning in the late 1970s, towing a horse trailer. Perot told his lawyer he wanted to show him a piece of property he had been eyeing but that it was so remote and massive it could only be seen on horseback.

The two loaded into the car and headed to a prairie far north of Dallas, where they saddled up and went for a ride. They trotted out into the middle of nowhere and stopped. Perot turned to Luce and told him, “I want to build downtown Dallas right here.” There were no roads in sight.

Fast forward to 2022, when Luce found himself walking into the sleek headquarters of Toyota North America in Plano for a meeting. He realized he was standing near the exact spot where he and Perot had ridden horses so many years ago.

Perot had purchased the North Texas prairie that he and Luce trotted through that Saturday morning and turned it into Legacy business park. Annexed by Plano, it became one of the world’s most significant concentration of corporate campuses, home to Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, JCPenney, Pizza Hut, Ericsson, and Perot’s tech giant, Electronic Data Systems.

Luce took that 1970s arrival of his boss with equines in tow in stride, as always. It wasn’t unusual for Perot to ask him to go on adventures—like when he asked Luce to manage his presidential campaign. Or the time he brokered the purchase of a 13th-century copy of the Magna Carta. Or when he commissioned a container ship tanker to serve as a refueling station in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for an around-the-world helicopter journey.

Luce spent decades as the trusted legal aid to one of the most innovative business leaders of the 20th century, helping Perot build a corporate empire. He is full of stories from his years working alongside Perot, but his desire to serve and make the world a better place has always driven him—to the point where he ran for Texas Governor in 1990. And that drive has never left. He is continuing to push—long after many of his peers have moved on to retirement. Luce is a leading voice for the growth of the region’s biotech industry, teaming

up with another Texas legend, Lyda Hill. At age 83, he is still busy founding think tanks, advocating for workforce development and education, and doing what he can to help pave a better future for the state he loves.

THE ‘CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC’

Tom Luce was born to a single mother in a University Park duplex. An active child who loved athletics, an accident when he was 8 years old nearly put an end to his collegiate baseball and basketball career before it ever began. During after-school care at the YMCA, Luce fell and tripped on a pipe that impaled his leg. Doctors told him they may have to amputate.

His uncle knew Doak Walker and got the SMU star and Heisman Trophy winner to visit the young Luce at the hospital. Walker convinced him that if he worked hard he would recover, and he did. Luce would go on to become a triple threat in sports, helping to win a state championship in football at Highland Park High School in 1956 as an offensive lineman and attend Virginia Military Institute to play baseball and basketball.

He was able to attend VMI after a group of Dallas businessmen raised funds to help pay for his education.

But Luce got homesick and transferred to SMU after his first year, and married his wife when he was 19. He worked to put himself through college and, after ma-

Michael Dell, Ross Perot Sr., Tom Luce, and Ross Perot Jr. photographed in 2009 after Perot Systems was acquired by Dell for $3.9 billion.

Ross Perot Sr. and his son Ross Perot Jr. aboard the Spirit of Texas. At age 23, Perot Jr. became the youngest person to pilot a helicopter around the world.

Tom Luce and Pam, his wife of 63 years, photographed in 1958 at a western dance during their senior year at Highland Park High School.

joring in accounting, became interested in the law and attended law school at SMU at night.

In the early 1970s, President Nixon took the unusual step of asking Ross Perot Sr. if he would purchase the country’s third-largest brokerage firm, DuPont, Glore Forgan & Co., which was experiencing financial difficulties. Ever the patriot, Perot acquired the company but couldn’t turn the business around and eventually decided to settle up with creditors rather than declare bankruptcy. Perot was searching for law firms to handle the liquidation and had been interviewing East Coast attorneys to no avail.

Luce, then just 33 years old, had recently opened his own firm and had only five lawyers on his team. But after a friend of Perot’s recommended him, Luce won the job. The young attorney was initially apprehensive. He feared he’d become the “captain of the Titanic” as he worked to liquidate the business, and asked what would happen to his firm when the matter was settled.

Perot told Luce that if he did a good job, he would get a chance at handling matters for Electronic Data Systems. “Within the year, he had given me all the EDS business,” Luce says. “That started my 50-year journey with Ross Sr.”

The relationship took Luce all over the world and required him to tackle things well outside typical legal work. In the 1970s, EDS landed a contract with Iran to build a social security system. But when the revolution took hold of the country in 1979, two EDS employees were imprisoned by the struggling regime. Ever one to take control, Perot tapped a group of mostly ex-military employees to bust his workers out of prison.

In 1983, British author Ken Follett turned the story into a historical novel called On Wings of Eagles, which was also made into a TV miniseries. Follet interviewed Luce several times for the book, but the attorney was ignorant of the rescue plan as it was happening. He focused on using diplomacy and negotiation to free the men—at one point making his case to Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s Secretary of State.

Luce’s diplomatic negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful, though the men did make it out of Iran. “If I had done my job, there wouldn’t have been a rescue,” Luce says. “Certainly, there were some extenuating circumstances. The Khomeini government was not easy to negotiate with.”

‘FOLLOW YOUR NOSE AND FIGURE IT OUT’

International politics would soon lead to a brief career in international logistics. In 1982, Perot’s son, Ross Perot Jr., and copilot Jay Coburn left Dallas to circumnavigate the globe in a Bell 206L-1 LongRanger II helicopter called the Spirit of Texas. There was only one problem for Coburn and eventual United States Air Force fighter pilot Perot Jr.—the Pacific Ocean.

There wasn’t a suitable location for Perot Jr.’s route that allowed a helicopter to land and refuel, so Perot Sr. called Luce and asked him to come up with something. Perot Jr. had already begun the journey; Luce had just two-and-a-half weeks to create a refueling station in the middle of the ocean between Asia and Alaska.

Luce flew to San Francisco and convinced a container ship with sufficient loading dock and weight bearing

Texas 2036 Finds the ‘Sensible Center’ With its Common-Sense Advocacy

Luce’s public policy work has shown him that advocacy efforts are often siloed and that budget spending can be short-sighted and focused on a legislator’s next election. So, he set about creating an organization to think holistically about the Lone Star State. After 82 trips on Southwest Airlines in one year, he identified key players working on the issues and built a board to help guide the initiative. The result is Texas 2036, a nonpartisan think tank named for Texas’ 200th birthday. Its data-based advocacy ranges from K-12 education and healthcare to workforce development and natural resources. After serving as Secretary of Education and running the University of North Carolina system, Margaret Spellings came home to Texas to oversee the effort, and, until recently, served as president and CEO.

“We’re thinking about the future and using data to put what I call the sensible center together,” Spellings says. “People are starving for their government to do the work of the government. We’re working on the meat and potatoes of government, and people want and expect that.”

IMAGES COURTESY OF TOM LUCE AND HILLWOOD

“She’s a hard lady to say no to,” Luce says of his longtime friend, Dallas philanthropist Lyda Hill. “She has done so much for so many.” When she asked him to be CEO of biotech initiatives for Lyda Hill Philanthropies in 2021, Luce agreed. “We asked Tom to lead our biotech initiatives because we knew he would bring the right people together to drive transformational advances in science, especially the fast-growing biotech ecosystem in North Texas,” says Lyda Hill. Luce’s strategic role with Lyda Hill Philanthropies forges connections to develop the biotech industry, notably developing Pegasus Park, a 23-acre mixeduse development with an emphasis on biotech, nonprofit, and corporate innovation. It has been a catalyst of the transformation of North Texas into a growing biotech hub.

“It has been seamless to work on Texas 2036 and Lyda Hill; there’s a lot of continuity between the two,” Luce says. “Lyda’s a philanthropist and a capitalist, focused on building a more inclusive economy with better-paying jobs for more people.”

to fill a shipping container with jet fuel and sail into the middle of the Pacific to serve as a pit stop. The helicopter landed, refueled, and made its way to Alaska and then down to Dallas. At 23, Perot Jr. became the first person to fly around the world in a helicopter. But it wouldn’t have happened without Luce.

By this time, Luce had established himself as a capable leader who could solve problems, leading him to fly commercial with one of the most famous documents in the history of Western Civilization. It all began with a call from Perot Sr., as so many of his adventures did. In 1984, Perot told Luce that his foundation had purchased an early copy of the Magna Carta, an agreement between barons in England and King John that limited the rights of the king. It laid the foundation to protect rights like wrongful imprisonment and freedom of religion that would be established in the U.S. Constitution.

Perot said he bought it on the condition that Luce would go to England to verify its authenticity and bring it home. Luce had no idea how to do such a thing. “Follow your nose and figure it out,” Perot told him. Luce went to the U.K., found an expert to verify it, and got the proper documentation. It was the real deal.

Luce thought that would be the end of it and assumed Perot would want the document sent back in the aviation equivalent of a Brinks truck. “No, just get on the airplane,” Perot told him. “The best security is no security.” Luce made sure he had a seat next to the coat closet where he kept the document on an American Airlines flight back to Dallas. When he returned to DFW Airport customs, they asked him if he had anything to declare. Luce responded honestly: “Yes, the Magna Carta.” In 2007, Perot’s foundation sold the document for $21 million to raise money for medical research.

Another episode in Luce’s “Forrest Gump” life involved a stint on the state’s highest court. The Texas constitution is unique in that it allows the governor to

appoint a temporary justice to the Supreme Court in the case of a deadlocked vote. When Chief Justice Tom Phillips had to disqualify himself from a case in 1988, the judges couldn’t break their four-to-four vote tie. So, then-Gov. Bill Clements called Luce and asked him to be Chief Justice Pro Tempore. When Luce questioned whether he could fill in for just one case, Clements responded, “By God, don’t tell me what I can do!”

Luce wore the robe and heard the case, which had to be reargued for his benefit. It involved a child who was electrocuted by a transmission line. The case took hours to argue and a couple of months to get a majority and write the opinion. In the end, Luce sided with those finding for the transmission company.

A career lawyer who has long been connected to public service, Luce likely would have made a formidable judge in another life. “That satisfied my itch,” he says.

ENTERING THE POLITICAL FRAY

Luce never had big political aspirations, but he was not naïve about the inner workings of government. He had long been involved with advocating for educational and workforce development in the Texas Legislature and, in 1984, led the Texas Select Committee on Public Education. During that process, he traveled the state and studied its public education system and decided it was not doing a good job of preparing the next generation.

Exploring the state and making connections served him well for the rest of his career; it also inspired him to see if he could make an impact as a candidate. When there was no incumbent in either party running for Governor in 1990, he decided to enter the fray as a Republican, running a campaign focused on improving Texas’ public education system with equitable funding. He finished third in the primary, losing to West Texas oil magnate Clayton Williams.

Luce’s first impression of Williams left a lasting memory. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Tom, I’ve heard nothing but great things about you, and I know you and I don’t like each other, but I want you to know I’m going to buy this race and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ [Williams] self-funded his campaign and outspent me 15 to one,” Luce says.

The attorney focused on growing his firm, Hughes and Luce, and served as lead counsel for billion-dollar mergers and litigation cases. In the 1990s, he sold his company and segued into investments. Then one night, while working out at home, Luce found himself watching his old boss on the Larry King Live show. Perot announced that he would run for President—if he could garner enough momentum in each state. “I almost fell off the treadmill,” Luce says.

Tom Luce and Lyda Hill’s Pegasus Park Biotech Collaboration

After the show, Perot made another call to Luce. He wanted the attorney to drop what he was doing and manage his campaign, and Luce, as he usually did, agreed. Perot would lead both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton at one point in 1992.

For Luce, it was a challenging and exhilarating experience. He found that managing a candidate with as much charisma and popularity as Perot was much different than his own run for Governor. “There was such a ground surge for him that it was an overwhelming experience,” Luce says. “When I first went to the campaign headquarters, there were 1,500 media requests.”

Perot would later exit and then re-enter the race when he qualified for the ballot in all 50 states. He received 18.9 percent of the popular vote across a broad spectrum of voters and was the most popular third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

MAKING A LASTING IMPACT

Luce’s ability to foster relationships allowed him to have an impact at the federal level, too. When Luce served on the Texas Select Committee on Public Education, he hired a young policy adviser named Margaret Dudar. The relationship would prove fruitful for decades to come. Going by the last name of Spellings since marrying in 2001, she worked on George W. Bush’s gubernatorial campaign as a political adviser and was nominated to be the secretary of education in 2005. To build

out her staff, she hired her old friend Luce to run the policy and budget arms of the department as assistant secretary of education. (See sidebar on page 43.)

Together, the two helped implement No Child Left Behind, one of the country’s most influential educational initiatives. Luce was a grandfather by the time he began his role in Washington, which he calls “a young person’s town.” Once, with his grandchildren in D.C. for a visit, he told a security guard in the education building that it was a special day for him. “Your retirement day?” she asked. It was his first day on the job.

Luce is proud of his work in the department, helping to write the Academic Competitiveness Act and serving on the National Math Panel to improve how the subject is taught in schools. But after two years of taking the Metro and living inside the Beltway, it was time to head back to Texas.

When Luce returned from Washington, he could have done anything he wanted. Notably, he could have done nothing. But that isn’t in his DNA. Luce, who has been married for 63 years, has seven grandchildren and a Bichon Frisé named Sophie, could easily retire and rest on his laurels. But he continues to do what he can to make Texas a better place, founding think tanks and serving as a booster for North Texas’ biotech industry with Lyda Hill Philanthropies. (See sidebar on page 44.) “I feel a need to pay back the state,” he says. “I was blessed to be born in Dallas; I have enjoyed a wonderful career, and I see this work as part of my obligation.”

(Left) Tom Luce’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign focused on improving education, a cause he continues to advocate for through Texas 2036.

In fewer than three weeks, Tom Luce arranged for the Spirit of Texas to land on a ship in the Pacific Ocean to refuel on its way around the world.

The 29 North Texas honorees in D CEO’s 2023

Corporate Counsel Awards help keep their enterprises out of trouble while clearing pathways to innovation and growth.

story by KELSEY J. VANDERSCHOOT

OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, corporate counsels have evolved to become their company’s biggest utility players. These executives have their hands in everything from M&A to human resources, data privacy, compliance, environmental and social governance, litigation, and more, liaising between many departments and ensuring different teams come together to meet larger business goals. “Corporate governance is not the cop on the beat, but an orchestra conductor,” says Anna Alvarado, managing director, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary for Dallas-based Texas Capital Bank. “When everyone is transparently in tune, it’s a huge competitive advantage.” Alvarado and the 28 other finalists in D CEO’s 2023 Corporate Counsel Awards raise their batons each day to help everything come together to create smooth enterprise operations. In a market filled with some of the best legal talent in the nation, the following North Texas in-house counsels stood out. Here, they share recent wins, challenges, and how they see their roles continuing to shift in the future.

DANIEL CARTER

Daniel Carter says becoming a chief legal officer and chief people officer within five years of graduating from law school is his greatest professional achievement.During the past year, he helped select and implement an employee performance evaluation and recognition tool for Irving-based RAILPROS’ more than 1,000 employees, among other milestones.

MAURI HINTERLONG

HEYCO ENERGY GROUP  general counsel and vice president of real estate, land, and legal, Mauri Hinterlong, helped the company acquire the Viura field in Spain. Now, it is making another acquisition. “We are currently closing on a scheme of arrangement to purchase all outstanding shares of Egdon Resources,” Hinterlong says.

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT and General Counsel Tim Cheatham helped take The Michaels Cos. private when the company was purchased by Apollo Global Management in 2021. “It has taken a different type of counsel, as we’re answering to a different set of shareholders,” Cheatham says. This past year, he helped guide Michaels through a class action lawsuit where it was the plaintiff, winning the company $19 million in a short time frame.

Amber Robinson has led legal for Dallas-based software company IMPROVING  since 2020 and says she is proud that her team has closed eight acquisitions in three years across three countries while representing a seller. “I view the legal department in a supportive role that offers effective and enabling services to all aspects of the business,” she says.

JEREMY SPIEGEL

North Texas concrete company CAPFORM didn’t have a legal department before Jeremy Spiegel, despite completing concrete projects for some of Dallas’ biggest stadiums, museums, and more. He says his legal approach relies on not being afraid to ask questions: “Identify the problem and then ask several thorough questions,” he says.

LAURA TARANTINO

Executive vice president, general counsel, compliance and privacy officer for OCEANS HEALTHCARE  Laura Tarantino addresses legal and regulatory issues in healthcare. “Most recently, we helped pass legislation in Texas that removes the requirement that behavioral health providers pay court costs when a patient is involuntarily committed,” she says.

IN 2016, Bryan Erman took an in-house role after a career litigating oil and gas, securities, and commercial litigation issues, including helping lead a team in a multi-national $2 billion lawsuit. “I chose an in-house position because I was intrigued by the opportunity of mixing a legal role with a business role,” Erman says. In 2023, he helped Matador Resources Co. close the $1.6 billion acquisition of Advance Energy Partners.

ABOUT SEVEN years ago, Essroc Cement Corp, where Carol Lowry worked as vice president, general counsel, and secretary, was acquired by Heidelberg Materials North America. “I assumed I would be separated as a redundancy, and I was surprised that Heidelberg’s management invited me to move to Dallas to lead the legal department,” she says. She has since helped the company onboard five new attorneys.

CAROL LOWRY | Heidelberg Materials North America

AMBER ROBINSON

BRYAN ERMAN | Matador Resources Co.

GENERAL CO UNSEL: SOLO

GENERAL COUNSEL: LARGE

“Doing the right thing is always best for the stakeholders long-term. It might not be the easiest or most profitable option short-term, but it will always be best long-term.”

JEANETTE TECKMAN, Match Group

DEPUTY / ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL: LARGE

DEPUTY ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL: MIDSIZE

“We do our best to be a launching pad and not an obstacle,”

JAMES BRISTOW says of the legal department he leads at EnLink Midstream. In the past year, Bristow has helped the company win several key litigations, navigate new cybersecurity initiatives, earn dismissals of multi-district litigation, and more.

Parkland Health’s BRAD NITSCHKE worked for nearly 14 years at Jackson Walker before shifting his career to focus on hospital operations and regulations. “We’ve helped the organization grapple with post-COVID staffing pressures and the operational impact of moving from pandemic-era regulation to a legal and regulatory ‘new normal’ state,” he says.

GENERAL CO UNSEL: SMALL

What is one moment you will never forget in your career?

“During my first jury trial, the judge asked me, outside the presence of the jurors but in front of counsel, whether I was old enough to practice law. It confirmed that even judges are biased. I’ll also always remember sitting in the courtroom and watching the Department of Justice prosecute Elizabeth Holmes.”

STEPHANIE BYRD Hall Group

“One evening, I explained to a judge why bailiffs and attorneys wearing confederate flag pins does not instill a feeling of equity and inclusion—despite being historically significant. The next day, I noticed that that judge mandated that individuals do not wear the confederate flag during court proceedings.”

TASHA GRINNELL The Container Store

“At my first franchisor, we were sued for fraud under the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law. The stakes were high, as the lawsuit was considered a “bet-thecompany” matter. Communicating our win to our CEO and witnessing his reaction will be etched in my memory as a careerdefining moment.”

JOSH NICOSIA Smoothie King

“I was a senior associate working on what was my largest transaction at the time. My mentor and senior partner had to leave the country, and I had to manage the final weeks of negotiation of the primary and ancillary deal documentation. It was like being thrown into the deep end and realizing you can’t swim.”

GAVIN O'CONNOR European Wax Center

IN-HOUSE COUNSEL

Karleen Finnegan joined Spirit Realty Capital in 2017 and says she will never forget attending the bell ringing ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange a year after helping close a spin-off transaction. “That day was such a neat experience and potentially a once-in-a-career experience for me,” she says.

As senior counsel, real estate for Peloton Interactive, Carrie Nie has advised company leaders around decisions for its global real estate footprint. “I've also expanded my role to include M&A and corporate legal guidance and have been leading the company through divestitures and strategic partnerships,” she says.

Christopher Pappaioanou has helped guide Envoy Air over the past eight years from a shrinking workforce to one of the U.S.'s largest regional airlines with more than 19,000 employees and 140 locations. “I have the opportunity to take on challenges, which have a meaningful impact on Envoy and its employees,” he says.

KARLEEN FINNEGAN

CARRIE NIE

CHRISTOPHER PAPPAIOANOU

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Julie Sherman Josh Dazey

In addition to guiding Arlington-based U.S. Energy Development Corp. through rapid growth and a $225 million purchase of wells in Midland, Josh Dazey helps provide refugee services in Fort Worth. Here are some of the ways he’s given back:

Julie Sherman joined HVAC giant Lennox as assistant general counsel in 2017 and has helped guide the company through supply chain challenges during the pandemic. In her free time, she works with Equest, an equine therapy organization.

CHAMPION OF DIVERSITY

Dazey has volunteered with and served on the board of Refugee Services of Texas, helping asylum seekers acclimate to the U.S.

Sherman volunteers to help children and adults with diverse needs perform activities and therapies with horses.

RICHARD ROSALEZ has championed diversity since his days at MIT, where he led diversity admissions recruiting and campus programming. At Samsung, he helped found Unidos, a Hispanic employee research group. “We celebrated our second anniversary,” he says. He was also appointed to the company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Council.

Through the organization, he helps families grocery shop, practice English, set up phone and internet, and more.

UP AND COMER

ROCIO GARCÍA ESPINOZA

Rocio García Espinoza demonstrated attorney skills at a young age: she advocated for her immigrant parents and helped them solve problems as non-native English speakers. Now, she is senior counsel of real estate at Rosewood Property Co. “My work is very meaningful to me; it builds communities,” she says.

She serves on Equest’s board and was chairwoman in 2022. Before Equest, she mentored youth through Big Brothers Big Sisters.

RAYMOND PALMER JR.

Raymond Palmer Jr. joined Fluor Corp. in 2021, shortly before it sold its equipment and fleet business to One Equity Partners in a $73 million deal. He now often takes the lead on M&A transactions and has worked on deals with European, Australian, and South American businesses, navigating various regulations.

While in college, Emmanuel Nwakibu worked as an intern when Heinz was acquired by Warren Buffett. “Watching a multi-billion dollar organization almost singularly turn to the legal team for guidance is what made me go into corporate law,” he says. He has worked with Hunt Oil Co., Coca-Cola, and Kaplan North America.

Bell Textron Deputy General Counsel for Global Labor and Employment

DANIELLE NEEDHAM is the chair of the company’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Council. “I do my best to use my voice as a differentiator in the legal community, to raise awareness on the issues females still face in today’s society and workplace, and to celebrate and honor those who have opened doors for me and others,” she says.

U.S. Energy Development Corp. Lennonx International

EMMANUEL NWAKIBU

FOR THE FIRST five years of her career, Rebecca Chartan was an assistant district attorney in the Bronx. “I handled more than 500 misdemeanor and felony cases,” she says. She then went into private practice and moved to Dallas in 2011 to specialize in labor and employment. Over the past year, as deputy general counsel for MV Transportation, she resolved more than five class-action suits, including four California wage and hour class-action suits.

Corporate Counsel Awards

Winners and Finalists

GENERAL COUNSEL (LARGE)

Bryan Erman, Matador Resources Co.

Finalists: Tim Cheatham, The Michaels Cos.; Carol Lowry, Heidelberg Materials North America

GENERAL COUNSEL (MIDSIZE)

Anna Alvarado, Texas Capital Bank

GENERAL COUNSEL (SMALL)

Stephanie Byrd, HALL Group

Finalists: Tasha Grinnell, The Container Store; Josh Nicosia, Smoothie King; Gavin O’Connor, European Wax Center

GENERAL COUNSEL (SOLO)

Amber Robinson, Improving Finalists: Daniel Carter, RailPros; Mauri Hinterlong, Heyco Energy Group; Jeremy Spiegel, Capform; Laura Tarantino, Oceans Healthcare

DEPUTY/ASSOCIATE

GENERAL COUNSEL (LARGE)

Jeanette Teckman, Match Group

DEPUTY/ASSOCIATE

GENERAL COUNSEL (MIDSIZE)

James Bristow, EnLink Midstream

Finalist: Brad Nitschke, Parkland Health

AT MISSION FOODS, a company under Gruma Corp., director and corporate counsel Thomas Conner helps the company navigate a variety of business issues. In the last year, he completed a full revision of its commercial and employment templates. “It was an extensive effort but an important project to complete,” he says. He is also responsible for the company’s litigation docket and reviews many of its documents with customers and vendors.

DEPUTY/ASSOCIATE

GENERAL COUNSEL (SMALL)

Jennifer Schultz, Randa Apparel & Accessories

Finalists: Rebecca Chartan, MV Transportation; Thomas Conner, Mission Foods

IN-HOUSE COUNSEL

Carrie Nie, Peloton Interactive

Finalists: Karleen Finnegan, Spirit Realty Capital; Christopher Pappaioanou, Envoy Air

CHAMPION OF DIVERSITY

Richard Rosalez, Samsung Electronics America

Finalist: Danielle Needham, Bell Textron

AS ASSISTANT GENERAL counsel for Randa Apparel & Accessories, Jennifer Schultz wears many hats: She addresses marketing, advertising, HR, litigation, commercial agreements, privacy, and more. In the past year, she increased the company’s push toward omnichannel and digital approaches, revamped website operations, including privacy and consumer rights, and onboarded a new CIO. She is also helping the company navigate AI.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Josh Dazey, U.S. Energy Development Corp.

Finalist: Julie Sherman, Lennox International

UP AND COMER

Emmanuel Nwakibu, Kaplan North America

Finalists: Rocío García Espinoza, Rosewood Property Co.; Raymond Palmer Jr., Fluor Corp.

“Corporate governance is not the cop on the beat, but an orchestra conductor. When everyone is transparently in tune, it’s a huge competitive advantage.”

ANNA ALVARADO, Texas Capital Bank

GENERAL COUNSEL: MIDSIZE

REBECCA CHARTAN | MV Transportation

JENNIFER SCHULTZ | Randa Apparel & Accessories

THOMAS CONNER | Mission Foods

DEPUTY / ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL: SMALL

FIELD NOTES

Entrepreneurship Unleashed

“becoming an entrepreneur was my toughest challenge. in september 2019 , my wife and I welcomed our first child, Jack, and I had just quit my job to pursue my dream of creating Socorro Tequila. The protective instinct as a parent is indescribable. I had also secured pre-revenue investments from friends and mentors, adding to the pressure—fast forward to March 2020 the pandemic hit. Despite the devestation, I believe it forced positive realizations. My business partner, Pablo, and I revamped our business plan and adopted the mantra “the strong survive.” Our Socorro Tequila launch seemed doomed on paper, but the outcome exceeded our expectations. We visited countless momand-pop liquor stores, tasting with anyone willing. This wasn’t in our original plan, but it allowed us to achieve our primary goal: getting Socorro into people’s hands. The feedback was humbling. Many would have returned to comfortable jobs and considered it a loss. Pablo and I, fueled by passion and belief, were determined to see it through, no matter what.” —as told to Ben Swanger

NORTH TEXAS BUSINESS ADVICE, ANALYSIS, and COMMENTARY

Josh Irving, Co-Founder and CEO I & A AGAVE SPIRITS

TOUGHEST CHALLENGE

SPORTS BUSINESS

The New Age of College Athletics

How North Texas leaders and companies are bringing their influence to the name, image, and likeness era of college athletics.

story by BEN SWANGER

ust one month after the ncaa approved new rules that paved the way for college athletes to get paid for their name, image, and likeness (NIL), Frisco’s Keurig Dr Pepper helped break the seal on the untapped marketing sector. The beverage giant signed former Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei to be the face of the popular “Fansville” TV advertisements. The following season, it signed former Alabama’s Bryce Young to the same agreement.

The deals were made possible by the Supreme Court’s July 2021 ruling that stated college athletes were free to utilize their name, image, and likeness to sign contracts and earn money through endorsement deals. The unanimous ruling came after decades of athletes and their allies lobbied for the legalization of what Southern Methodist University’s football boosters

most notably carried out illegally in the 1980s. “When you restrict wages and benefits for 100 years there is going to be fallout, but dealing with fallout today and allowing athletes to have these rights and earn their fair share is just part of this long process,” Jordan Rogers, a former Nike leader turned NIL consultant, says.

More than 30 years after SMU was handed the ‘Death Penalty’ for illegally paying football players, SMU alums Chris Kleinert, Hunt Realty Investments CEO, and Kyle Miller, Silver Hill Energy Partners CEO, have erected the Boulevard Collective to pay college athletes again—this time, legally. A collective is a network of fans, former students, and businesses pooling money together to create branding and income earning opportunities for college athletes. “If NIL can do what we think it can, SMU stands to benefit as much as, or more than, anybody,” Kleinert says of the ACC’s newest expansion university.

The collective is unwilling to disclose the capital that it has deployed, but the women’s basketball team, women’s volleyball team, men’s basketball team, and football team are all part of the pool. The collective has partnered with Dallas ISD, The Communities Foundation of Texas, the National Association on Mental Illness, and other nonprofits so that within every contract an SMU student-athlete signs, they are encouraged to participate in service opportunities. Looking ahead, a group of SMU donors came forward to get the swim teams a piece of the NIL pie and “we’ve got momentum that should carry over to other sports,” Kleinert says.

On the corporate side, AT&T is agreeing to deals with athletes from Gonzaga, the University of Southern California, the University of Tennessee, and Florida A&M. DFW-based Panini America, a manufacturer of sports cards with 250 employees, is very active in the NIL space, signing 25 student-athletes to deals in 2023. It recently inked Texas Longhorn quarterback Arch Manning to his first NIL deal which resulted in his first trading card selling at auction for $102,500—all the proceeds benefited St. David’s HealthCare and St. David’s Foundation in Austin. “That really opened the eyes of people to start seeing the good that NIL can do,” Jason Howarth, the senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations for Panini America, says.

Dallas-based apparel brand Mizzen + Main is also capitalizing on the NIL space by working with 20 student-athletes since 2021, utilizing trade-only contracts, informal deals, and formal, paid contracts. “We’re looking for the athletes who align with our brand,” Mizzen + Main President Ryan Kent says. “In our deal with Sam Hartman [Notre Dame’s starting quarterback], our social media engagement is up about 100 percent on certain posts.”

In Fort Worth, Texas Christian University has launched NIL curriculum and workshops within the Neeley School of Business. Now, more than two years into the NIL age, “virtually 100 percent” of TCU’s more than 500 student-athletes participate in the Neeley NIL curriculum each year, according to university president and Neeley NIL co-founder Daniel Pullin.

TCU was the first Power 5 university to establish NIL curriculum. “The courses set up students for success now in understanding how to leverage their brand, and for the next 50 years after their playing career,” Pullin says. “The way we look at it is the Supreme Court ruling planted 500 entrepreneurs on our campus overnight.”

Classes encompass brand management, media magnification, social media engagement, value propositions, business formation, liability issues, taxation issues, and legal matters. As far as what NIL will look like five years down the road, Pullin says it’s anybody’s guess. “We have a lot of state-by-state legislation, but TCU would welcome a federal solution,” Pullin says. “NIL deals will be normalized with a focus on value-based propositions and ROI—they’ll become more traditional business transactions and TCU would benefit from that.”

One large question remains: Will student-athletes become employees (or contractors) of their universities, opening the door for revenue sharing, healthcare, and other benefits? According to the NCAA’s latest reports, Division I athletics generated $15.8 billion in revenue in 2019—the median university generated nearly $81 million. “Do I think revenue sharing is an answer? Yes,” Rogers says. “The local car dealership or the local chicken wings place cannot compensate these athletes for what their value is to the university. NIL is a Band-Aid. Ultimately, I think we’re probably moving toward employment.”

RULES OF THE GAME

The Latest Federal Proposals

COLLEGE ATHLETE ECONOMIC FREEDOM ACT

This bill would prevent any organization from restricting or limiting athletes’ NIL activity. Also, athletes would attain the right to share in revenue.

THE PROTECTING ATHLETES, SCHOOLS AND SPORTS ACT OF 2023

The PASS Act would require agents and collectives to register with a regulatory body and guarantee health insurance for sports-related injuries up to eight years after graduation.

STUDENT ATHLETE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD ACT

This bill says that the FTC should enforce NIL rules and a Congress-appointed commission would study and recommend NIL improvements.

COLLEGE ATHLETES PROTECTION AND COMPENSATION ACT OF 2023

This proposal outlines that student-athletes would receive healthcare coverage for long-term conditions like CTE and universities would be required to report revenues.

What key leadership strategies do you value the most?

edited by BEN SWANGER

illustrations by JAKE MEYERS

CHAKRI GOTTEMUKKALA

Co-founder and CEO O9 SOLUTIONS

“Scaling a business for growth is all about leadership and finding multiple levels of leadership throughout the company. It’s key for leaders to live by the company values. (In o9’s case, it’s creating a culture across client value, leadership, execution, innovation, and social impact.) The only way a company can scale is if it is growing based on values, not just based on hierarchies. We have made it a point to drive leadership based on values.”

NADINE LEE

and CEO DALLAS AREA RAPID TRANSIT

“It is important to empower staff to think independently and critically. Former Navy SEALs Captain David Marquet describes the importance of articulating intent and letting your staff set into motion the activities needed to achieve desired outcomes. It is so important to build the confidence, capability, and capacity of your staff. To do so, you must push decisionmaking down and concurrently communicate your intent.”

SCOTT HARPER

Co-founder and CEO DIALEXA, AN IBM COMPANY

“Trust and transparency are driving forces of our culture. I believe that transparent conversations build trust and lead to positive cultures and business results. I prioritize direct conversations with colleagues through office hours, lunch-andlearn sessions, and one-on-one conversations. This was especially important during the IBM acquisition; I wanted to make sure everyone knew our ultimate goal was to protect our people.”

President

Congratulations to D CEO ’s Emerging Women Leadership Network 2023-2024 Members

From startups to Fortune

companies—with ambitions for the C-Suite, ownership, and more—these women leaders are paving new paths. Over the next six months, they will embark on a journey of personal and professional development alongside their peers and mentors. We are grateful for their commitment and participation. Learn more at dmagazine.com/ewln.

continued

from page

WHAT I DO:

“I’m an interior designer and home decor product designer and the owner of Caitlin Wilson Design.”

STYLE ICON:

“Aerin Lauder. She is classic and elegant. She has a strong perspective, but her personal style is soft and sophisticated.”

ON THE JOB:

“I am always on the go, between meetings and hopping around, so comfort is key. Dresses are my uniform and the easiest for the variety of settings I am in every day.”

STYLE INSPIRATION:

“My style is very informed by my interior style; it’s feminine and colorful but always elevated and tailored.”

FASHION ESSENTIALS:

“I never leave home without sunglasses and an extra pair of shoes. I must be comfortable, so I usually switch to Dior slides or a pair of sneakers halfway through my busy days.”

HOW I ACCESSORIZE:

“As much as I love accent decor in interiors, my personal accessories are simple and classic. I usually wear the same four bracelets, purely because they don’t come off. And my earrings five days a week are a simple pair. I’ll go bolder with a fun headband from Lele Sadoughi or a bright colored purse.”

WEEKEND LOOK:

“I love to lounge, so I have quite a collection of cozy sweatshirts.  You can find me any day of the week after 5 p.m. in one of them.”

FAVORITE STORE:

MUST-LISTEN

“ZenFounder’s The Entrepreneur Personality with Dr. Michael Freeman episode has had a big impact on my life. He is a psychiatrist who works with founders and CEOs. He talks about the unique nature of entrepreneurs and the importance of understanding who you are as a leader. Like him, I hope to be a voice to other founders and CEOs in pointing out self-care and mental health needs.”

LUKE HEJL | TimelyCare

“I’ve enjoyed Our Body Politic, which features discussions with, and covers news from, the perspective of women of color. I love their reporting, and I hear stories that I wouldn’t encounter in other sources.”

“The All-In Podcast is thoughtprovoking and informational to listen to as Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg talk economics, business, tech, politics, entertainment, and society.”

“I enjoy movies and that element of pop culture. So, I’ve enjoyed the Smartless podcast with Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes. I enjoy their unique friendships, and they bring a fun quirkiness to their guest interviews.”

“Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in her Wiser Than Me podcast, talks to famous older women—such as Jane Fonda, Isabel Allende, Fran Lebowitz, Carol Burnett, and others—about how to live a full and meaningful life.”

“Annie Duke, a cognitivebehavioral decision scientist, on The Provocateurs Podcast argues that the quality of decisions should be evaluated based on our analysis precedent to the revelation of the unknowns.”

Plain English with Derek Thompson is great as the longtime writer explains complex topical subject matters in intelligent and simplistic ways. He cuts through the noise on all things culturally relevant.”

NADINE S. LEE Dallas Area Rapid Transit

KIT SAWERS Klyde Warren Park

DAN BERNER Deloitte  JUSTIN KENNA GameSquare Esports

IMAGES COURTESY OF PODCASTS

Reservations for Three

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

“I’d choose Andy Beal. I’ve read the book about his poker exploits, but as a businessman, I’d like to hear about his philosophies and strategies to grow his business. I’d also choose Ross Perot Jr. I met him at a Junior Achievement banquet, but only briefly. I’m sure his stories alone would be worth the price of admission.”

FRANK CASTORA Eviden

“I always like to learn about peoples’ ‘why’ and what they want their legacy to be. I have read Cynt Marshall’s book and would love to ask more about her journey and evolving work with equity. While I have enjoyed dinner with her before, I love to listen and learn from Lyda Hill. She is also a lover of technology and making our community better through her investments.”

TRISHA CUNNINGHAM North Texas Food Bank

“The first one is easy: my dad, Alan Shor. You might be thinking, ‘You can have dinner with your dad any day of the week; why him?’ Well, I’ll always take another. The second is Andrew Watterson, COO of Southwest Airlines. I admire the way Southwest operates. No one is perfect, but SWA’s culture shines through to their employees, and that’s special for a company that large.”

ZACH SHOR Goodsurf

edited by BEN SWANGER

We are very proud to congratulate

Jeremy Spiegel Jeremy Spiegel

on being recognized as a finalist for the Outstanding In-House Counsel Solo Award. We are honored to have Jeremy in the Capform family.

Beaver Creek, Colorado

There’s a reason so many Dallasites, including tech entrepreneur Toni Portmann, flock to this charming mountainside village.

story by CHRISTINE

The Ritz-Carlton offers immediate access to the 2,000-acre Beaver Creek Mountain ski area.

The resort’s spa features saunas, steam rooms, hot and cold plunge pools, and a cavelike grotto.

The in-house Sakaba serves up exceptional sushi and is also known for its extensive array of sake.

WELL TRAVELED

PEREZ

SKI IN, SKI OUT

FRESH FISH

The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch’s Sakaba restaurant features a heated outdoor dining area.

TAKE A DIP The resort’s three hot tubs and heated outdoor pool stay open for swimming during winter months.

COZY COMFORT Design of the 180-room resort was inspired by grand lodges of the West.

SPA HAVEN

YEAR-ROUND

FUN

Along with skiing, The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch offers hiking, golfing, fishing, mountain biking, and more.

i fell in love all over again at beaver Creek, rediscovering the joy of skiing after a few decades away from the sport. There is nothing like the feeling of flying down the hills—and quietly contemplating life while taking in stunning views on chairlift rides.

Longtime skiers know that this past season was an anomaly, with record snowfalls that kept resorts open well into the spring. Conditions were ideal in late March when I visited Beaver Creek, a 2,000-acre ski area anchored by three villages: Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch, and Arrowhead. We stayed at the ski-in, ski-out Ritz-Carlton at Bachelor Gulch. The skiing was among the best I’ve experienced in my life, with impeccably groomed corduroy slopes greeting us every morning. (It was a special treat to watch the teams of snowcats do their work at night outside our room, which overlooked the Bachelor Gulch Express Lift.)

Beaver Creek has 150 runs, and there’s something for every level of skier. According to my Ski Tracks app, I hit a max speed of 39.9 mph. (I’m not saying I necessarily meant to go that fast, but I lived to tell the tale.) And meandering through slower trails among towering trees under impossibly blue skies will make you forget about any stresses in your life.

IAs you would expect at a Ritz-Carlton resort, the accommodations were exceptional, with spacious, comfortable rooms and little extras like walk-out balconies, marble soaker tubs, and in-room fireplaces. (The 20-year-old resort recently got a multimillion-dollar refresh.) I highly recommend springing for access to the Club Lounge, which, along with games and reading materials, offers five different complimentary food and beverage options a day, from a bounty of breakfast treats in the morning to desserts and liqueurs at night. The ski concierge services were a nice perk, too.

The Ritz also is known for its luxurious spas, and Bachelor Gulch did not disappoint, with offerings like the Oxygen Hydration Facial and

The Art of Wellness, a massage that incorporates guided breathing and visualization techniques with salt stone and rose quartz crystals. Along with 19 treatment rooms, facilities include steam rooms, saunas, hot and cold plunge pools, and a cave-like grotto.

I wasn’t expecting to find the best sushi I’ve ever eaten in the midst of the Rockies, but that’s what I found at Sakaba, a lounge-style restaurant with both indoor and outdoor seating. We opted for the Omakase (chef’s choice) experience, and everything from the Hamachi to the Black Miso Cod was outstanding. Sakaba also offers Japanese beer and spirits and an extensive sake menu.

My favorite seafood dish was not found at Sakaba but at Wyld, the resort’s signature restaurant. Do not visit The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch without trying the Salmon Cones—sushi in yuzu-sesame-miso shells. It’s the stuff dreams are made of. Pro tip: the cones also are on the happy hour menu at the popular outdoor Fireside Vail Bar.

Skiing Nirvana and Foodie Delight

Toni Portmann has been visiting Beaver Creek for more than three decades and owns a condo there. A blackdiamond skier, the CEO and founder of Memory Science loves easy access to the slopes. An ardent foodie, she also loves the destination’s robust restaurant scene. Among her favorites are the Veal Scallopini and Hot Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake at Juniper Restaurant, the Octopus Salad and Chicken Liver Mousse at Vin48, and the Huevos Racheros served Christmas-style (half green sauce and half red sauce) at the legendary Little Diner in nearby Vail. Portmann visits the mountain town yearround. “There’s a saying that the winters will bring you here and the summers will keep you here,” she says. “It’s true.”

TRAVEL TIPS

PLENTY OF SPACE Accommodations range from luxurious single rooms to threebedroom penthouses.

RICHARD THOMAS

as told to BEN

SWANGER

illustration by JAKE MEYERS

growing up in spanish town , one of Jamaica’s most violent cities, Richard Thomas remembers traveling through gunfire on the way to school and witnessing a murder while playing soccer as a young boy. He left the island with only $150 to his name to pursue college in America, going on to spend about 15 years in consumer goods posts at Dean Foods, Borden Dairy Co., and more. He launched Dallas-based The Present House Hospitality Group in 2010 and has since expanded the company’s portfolio to include The Island Spot Jamaican Kitchen and Bar, The Island Spot Resort Villa in Jamaica, and Bone Daddy’s House Smoke. Here, he shares more about his upbringing: “My mother owned a shop the size of a bodega, and she fed the community. Her recipes are now on The Island Spot’s menu. By the time I was 5, I was running the calculations for the bodega. At 13, I was running the whole shop. We lived in a poor community, so I was routinely exposed to the struggling people in the area. There were multiple violent groups fighting against each other, committing extortion, shootings, and murders. I’ve seen people who were good and gifted

never live long enough to see their lives reach their full potential. That really bothered me. One of my personal long-term goals is to return to Jamaica and build a community development center to help get young kids off the streets.”

Founder and CEO

THE PRESENT HOUSE HOSPITALITY GROUP

RICHARD THOMAS

FAMILY UNITY

As a child, Thomas (second from right) leaned on his uncles Rupert and Dennis for financial and fatherly support.

PROUD GRAD Thomas graduated from Benedict College in 2004, then earned a Master’s Degree from The Ohio State University.

YOUNG LEADER

Before coming to the U.S., Thomas (second from left) served as the deputy head boy at his high school in Jamaica.

CREW Dallas

sara terry, sior, chief marketing officer of Pacific Elm Properties and CREW Dallas president, says that since 1980, CREW Dallas has been the leading commercial real estate organization in Dallas, providing members unlimited opportunities to “Meet, Learn and Help.” The Dallas chapter provides networking, industry learning, and leadership development and gives back to the community. The chapter of 400-plus commercial real estate professionals of all levels, specialties, and demographics strives to advance women by showcasing member expertise, successes, and serving as an industry resource.

Featured here are the Trailblazers, an affinity group comprised exclusively of CREW Dallas business owners. They have paved the way for women to lead in a predominantly male industry and push boundaries in each facet of commercial real estate by creating a provocative dialogue among peers in every discipline in the industry. This drives member-to-member business opportunities and encourages members to be a force for activism and community involvement.

CREW Dallas members benefit from a dynamic and supportive environment that promotes career advancement through knowledge sharing and networking. In growing and strengthening the Dallas network, CREW aims to create more commercial real estate opportunities for women in North Texas.

214.890.6490

crew-dallas.org

From Left to Right: Janet Cady, CEO FRST General Construction; Samantha Harkinson Dewan, EVP Harkinson Dewan Commercial; Sharon Herrin, President and Broker Herrin Commercial Real Estate; Sandra Taylor, Managing Principal SL Taylor Investments; Najdi Rafaty, Principal LiNC Commercial Realty; Eugenia Canakes Robbins, President & Founder R E R Solutions; Janice Peters, Principal Hudson Peters Commercial. Not pictured: Coni Hennersdorf, Principal CODA Consulting Group; Sara Terry, CMO Pacific Elm Properties

OTJ Architects

aarohi pilankar and sara bodzy took a leap of faith when they joined hands to lead OTJ Architects’ Dallas location, each venturing into a new career challenge. They attribute their success and OTJ’s growth, in part, to the horsepower of a lockstep, supportive nationwide team. Says Bodzy, “We have made big waves and success has been a true team effort.”

Strong female leadership, as well as a tangible commitment to design excellence and to the quality of the client experience initially attracted Pilankar and Bodzy to this national architecture practice. “OTJ has been a champion for women in architecture,” Pilankar says, “We are a start-up without being a start-up, and it’s nice to hear ‘yes’ to our ideas. They trust us to be successful.”

A chosen family of architects, designers, strategists, techies, and big-picture thinkers, OTJ is connected by shared values and a commitment to an inclusive culture where everyone can do their best, most creative work. Whether in the boardroom or on a construction site, OTJ’s team members are committed to growing the Dallas office together. Says Pilankar, “We love this market, and we are here to stay!”

3525 Cedar Springs Road, Suite 100 Dallas, Texas 75219

469.453.5013

otj.com

From Left to Right: Sara Bodzy, Business Development, Aarohi Pilankar AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal & Studio Director

Women

SRS Real Estate Partners

a commercial real estate advisory company with a strong foundation in retail, SRS Real Estate Partners provides extensive solutions to tenants, owners, and investors in retail and industrial real estate. With corporate headquarters in Dallas and commercial real estate expertise planted in 28 offices around the country, SRS advises many of the top names in retail, restaurants, and industrial.

“Many of the top brokers in our company are female, and women comprise a significant part of our corporate leadership team,” says Chris Maguire, SRS CEO and chairman of the board. “SRS is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment and creating opportunities for women within the company and throughout the industry as a whole.”

One example of this commitment is SOAR, a company-wide community for women in brokerage focused on Support, Opportunity, Advancement and Relationships. The group, led by Karla Smith, meets regularly, providing networking, mentorship, and unique perspectives to help women succeed.

8144 Walnut Hill Lane, #1200 Dallas, Texas 75231 214.560.3200

srsre.com

From Left to Right: Janie French, Gia Bond, Sarah Nelson, Shannon Johnston, Karla Smith, Dawn Greiner, Mary Harris. Not pictured: Thuy Paletti

A Casual Dining Pioneer

story by ZOE COTE

Norman brinker’s illustrious restaurant career began with Jack-in-theBox in the 1950s. He helped grow the company into a fast-food chain and became its president in two years. Brinker then decided to undertake his own venture and founded Steak and Ale. It is credited with launching casual dining, revered as the birthplace of the salad bar and stock service lines. Brinker sold Steak and Ale for about $100 million in 1976 to Pillsbury Group and went on to manage operations of Bennigans, Burger King, and Häagen-Dazs. In 1983, he acquired Chili’s, which became the bedrock of Brinker International, which owns Maggiano’s Little Italy, It’s Just Wings, and has as minority stake in the owner of Romano’s Macaroni

Grill. Today, Brinker International is one of the world’s largest restaurant holding companies, with 1,600 locations across 28 countries and 62,000 employees. Brinker was a veteran in the Navy, and his horsemanship skills qualified him for the U.S. equestrian team in the 1952 Olympics. He also competed in the 1954 modern pentathlon championships in Budapest, Hungary. When his wife Nancy’s sister, Susan G. Komen, died of breast cancer in 1980, he helped her establish the renowned foundation that bears his sister-in-law’s name. His daughter Cindy remembers how the principles of listening and trusting others in business guided her father. She says he was known to say, “It doesn’t matter if you have the capabilities to lead. What matters is, are you worthy of being followed?”

INDUSTRY ICON Norman Brinker found success in fine dining and fast food market gap.

You’ll need more than just a bank to achieve greatness.

You’ll need a trusted financial partner. And an estate planner. And a family wealth advisor. And a commercial banker. And treasury solutions experts. And strategic advice. And connectivity to global markets. And an unstoppable team of entrepreneurs.