Henry Ross Perot Jr. is the chairman of Hillwood, the Dallas real estate company he founded, and of The Perot Group, which manages the Perot family’s business interests. He is best known in North Texas as the developer of AllianceTexas in north Fort Worth.
Early career
Perot was born in Dallas on November 7, 1958, the son of businessman and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. He graduated from St. Mark’s School of Texas in 1977 and from Vanderbilt University, then served eight and a half years in the U.S. Air Force. In 1982, at age 23, he co-piloted the first helicopter flight around the world.
Hillwood and AllianceTexas
Perot founded Hillwood in 1988. Its signature project is AllianceTexas, a 27,000-acre development built around Fort Worth Alliance Airport, an industrial airport and inland port. Hillwood reports that AllianceTexas has generated more than 73,000 jobs and an estimated $142.9 billion in regional economic impact, and the company has also developed master-planned residential communities and urban mixed-use projects.
The company reports that it has developed and acquired 307 million square feet of industrial space and developed 50,000 single-family lots. Its residential projects include Pecan Square in Northlake.
Other roles
Perot bought the Dallas Mavericks in 1996 and sold the team to Mark Cuban in 2000, keeping a minority stake. He has served on the board of Dell Inc., chaired the Texas Governor’s Task Force for Economic Growth in 2002 and 2003, and was named to Gov. Greg Abbott’s Strike Force to Open Texas in 2020. He chairs the United States Air Force Memorial Foundation and sits on the boards of trustees of St. Mark’s, SMU and Vanderbilt.
He co-chairs the EastWest Institute and sits on the board of Guide IT, and in 2023 he was announced as one of the owners of the Texas Super Kings, a Major League Cricket team.
Recognition
Perot is in the Living Legends section of D CEO’s 2027 Dallas 500. Three other Hillwood executives made the same edition: president Mike Berry, Hillwood Communities president Fred Balda and Hillwood Urban executive vice president Bill Brokaw.