D CEO released its 2027 Dallas 500 this week, and 187 of the 500 North Texas executives in the book are new to it. The other 313 are returning from the 2026 edition. The magazine debuted the 12th edition on November 10 at an event at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.
That turnover is the number worth watching. More than a third of the list changes from one year to the next, and last year’s book added 186 new leaders. So the list works less like a ranking and more like a yearly snapshot of who is making decisions in Dallas-Fort Worth right now. D CEO says plainly that it is not an awards program or a popular vote. Editors make every selection, and the number of nominations a person receives does not count.
For a Dallas business owner, the practical use is simple. Read the list as a map of who controls budgets, real estate, capital and civic agendas in your industry, then check which of those organizations you already know and which you don’t. Portal of Dallas has covered a number of the companies on this year’s list, and several of them are already in the Portal of Dallas business directory.
What D CEO Published
According to D CEO’s announcement, its editors spent more than six months meeting with sources, studying business data and asking past honorees who deserved more attention. They also reviewed nearly 400 nominations. To qualify, a leader has to be based in North Texas.
The book profiles leaders in more than 50 categories, from chief financial officers and corporate counsel to chefs, sports executives and university presidents. The full profiles appear only in the print edition. The free online list gives each leader’s name, title and organization.
Seven executives appear on this year’s covers:
- Chris Gannett of Gannett.Partners
- Anthony Goonetilleke of Amdocs
- DeVon Lang of Truist
- Candice Pattisapu of Noumenal Labs
- Bina Palnitkar of Greenberg Traurig
- Robert Quick of Western Addition Restaurant Group
- Tiffany Woodson of Ink + Oro
The mix is telling. It includes a consulting founder, a technology executive, a regional bank president, a startup CEO, a law firm shareholder, a restaurant group founder and a design firm founder.
Where the Influence Sits
The online list is organized by section, and the sections show where D CEO’s editors see influence in the regional economy.
Real estate gets the most room
Real estate has 10 categories, more than any other section. They cover architecture and design, commercial brokers, developers and investors, construction and engineering, multifamily, hospitality and retail property, and residential development and sales. Names on the list include John Goff, chairman of Crescent Real Estate, and Betsy Cameron, president of Ebby Halliday Realtors.
That fits what the market has looked like all year. Crescent bought one of Uptown’s best-known office buildings in 2026, a deal Portal of Dallas covered in its report on the 2100 McKinney purchase. In North Texas, the people who control land and buildings shape everything that gets built on top of them.
Civic and cultural leaders are on it too
Universities and cultural institutions sit beside the companies. University presidents Jay Hartzell of SMU and Prabhas Moghe of UT Dallas are on it, along with Brian Ferriso of the Dallas Museum of Art and Linda Silver of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. So are Trisha Cunningham of the North Texas Food Bank, Sabina Carr of the Dallas Arboretum and Chris McLaughlin, CEO of DFW International Airport.
Lorie Logan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, is in the government and civic section. So is Jennifer Scripps of Downtown Dallas Inc.
Living Legends anchor the back of the book
The Living Legends section reads like a history of the modern Dallas economy. It includes Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, Ross Perot Jr. of Hillwood, Ray L. Hunt of Hunt Consolidated, Kelcy Warren of Energy Transfer, Nancy A. Nasher of NorthPark Center, Mark Cuban, former President George W. Bush and former U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
What the Honorees Want From Downtown Dallas
D CEO asked this year’s honorees what downtown Dallas needs. The answers lined up around safety, affordability and walkability. Many also asked for more to do after work hours and, by a wide margin, more professional sports.
That wish list lands at an awkward moment. AT&T, whose CFO Jennifer Biry is on the list, broke ground this week on its new Plano headquarters and is moving out of Whitacre Tower downtown, as Portal of Dallas reported in its coverage of the groundbreaking. The executives who want a livelier downtown include people whose companies decide where thousands of employees park every morning.
Our Read on the 2027 List
Being on the list is not the story. Being new to it is.
When 37 percent of a list changes in a year, it tells you that influence in Dallas is not locked up by a few families and the biggest companies. The Living Legends section still carries the famous names. The newcomers and emerging leaders show who is gaining ground: startup founders, younger operators and executives at companies most residents have never heard of.
That matters if you sell to businesses here. The person who signs off on your proposal next year may not be on anyone’s radar today. The list will not tell you how to reach those people, but it tells you who to learn about first.
What To Do Next
If you run a Dallas-area business, a few steps make the list useful:
- Read the categories that match your industry and your customers’ industries
- Note the newcomers in those categories, since they are often the easiest to reach early
- Look up each organization’s local office and leadership before a meeting, not after
- Plan your nominations for next year’s edition in the spring
D CEO took nominations for this edition from late March to mid-June. If the schedule holds, the next window opens in spring 2027, and editors, not vote counts, will decide who makes the cut.
Portal of Dallas is adding Dallas 500 organizations based in North Texas to its business directory, and each listing will name the leaders at that organization who made the 2027 list.
