Inside the Mind of a Billion-Dollar Builder: Fernando De Leon’s Story
Fernando De Leon counts himself as one of the luckiest guys in the world.
The Mexican American billionaire grew up in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, graduated cum laude from Harvard, and began his career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs before launching Leon Capital Group.
The humble real estate company in Texas has grown into a powerhouse with businesses across financial services, healthcare, and real estate. Along the way, De Leon hit billionaire status and receiving a self-made score of 10 from Forbes—putting him in the ranks with twenty other people with the same score, including Oprah.
De Leon is deeply committed to giving back through his family foundation, which focuses on tackling poverty in South Texas and northern Mexico, and through the De Leon Scholars Program, which invests in the next generation of changemakers across the state to Texas.
In a special live taping of The Latino Majority podcast held at The Alumni Society’s Leadership Summit in Chicago, De Leon shares his story of resilience and success from humble beginnings to becoming one of the few Mexican American billionaires.
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About Our Guest
Fernando De Leon is the founder and CEO of Leon Capital Group, a holding company overseeing twelve independently-managed subsidiaries in the three divisions: financial services, healthcare and real estate. Leon is not a private equity fund, it operates as a family holding company that takes the lead conceiving, developing, owning, and operating businesses.
Founded as a modest real estate development company in Texas, Leon has since evolved into a diverse holding company, capable of operating successfully across multiple geographies and industries. Today, Leon’s subsidiaries and externally managed companies encompass ~4,000 employees.
In Leon’s healthcare branch, Mr. De Leon and his team at Leon founded and currently operate Specialty Dental Brands, Frontline Dental Implant Specialists, Advanced Medaesthetic Partners, Physician Directed Partners, Texas Heart Partners, Mattison Avenue, and Turnwell Mental Health which collectively manage over 300 locations and provide healthcare to approximately 2 million people annually.
In Leon’s real estate holdings, Mr. De Leon has structured real estate investments with an asset value of $15B+. Leon Capital’s vehicles have invested in or developed approximately 20,000 rental housing units, 25M SF of industrial, 15M SF of retail, self-storage, healthcare assets, and 15,000 lots of land in residential subdivisions. Additionally, Leon Capital, along with the Perot Companies, co-founded a European industrial operating company, which has developed over 40M SF of industrial assets in the European Union.
Mr. De Leon is a co-founder of Crexi, one of the largest digital marketplaces connecting buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants in the commercial real estate sector. Crexi’s intelligence products support 3M real estate professionals with real time transaction data.
In the financial services branch, Leon Capital Management currently operates the investment management business and its various fund offerings. Leon Financial holds banking and insurance interests and operates Patient Capital, a specialty lending business designed to increase the accessibility of all Americans to critical health care offerings.
Mr. De Leon began his career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York. He received a BA, cum laude, from Harvard College, where he was a Hoover Foundation Scholar and a National Coca Cola Scholar. The De Leon Family Foundation focuses its work on poverty in south Texas and northern Mexico, and expanding access to healthcare. The De Leon Scholars program awards scholarships to ten students annually across the state of Texas, who endeavor to improve their communities.
