Ross Perot Jr. has spent his career building for the future—sometimes years, sometimes decades before others could see it coming. As chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Cos., the portfolio of organizations he leads touches nearly every corner of the modern economy: real estate, logistics, mobility, data infrastructure, venture capital, entertainment, and national policy.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce named him chair in 2025, knowing that he offered the rare combination of entrepreneurial instinct and long-range strategic vision. For Perot, innovation isn’t a sector—it’s a lens through which he has viewed everything he has done. That’s why D CEO and Dallas Innovates selected Perot to receive the inaugural Legacy of Innovation Award.
Having vision is only part of the formula. “A lot of people have creative ideas,” Perot says. “But you’ve got to marry an idea with courage and action.” He has spent more than 40 years doing exactly that, starting with a daring round-the-world helicopter tour at 23 and the launch of the country’s first industrial airport in North Fort Worth.
That airport is now AllianceTexas, a 27,000-acre, $130 billion economic engine that’s home to nearly 600 companies and a proving ground for autonomous trucks, next-gen air mobility, and some of the world’s most sophisticated logistics and e-commerce operations. It’s also a landing zone for blue-chip innovators like Amazon, Meta, Embraer, and MP Materials. Many of those businesses were not yet imagined when AllianceTexas began—and that is precisely the point.
Perot grew up watching innovation unfold. As the only son of early computing pioneer Ross Perot Sr., he had a front-row seat to the birth of EDS and watched his father grow it into one of the most influential technology-services companies on the planet.
“I grew up with a real entrepreneur,” Perot says. “And I grew up with four sisters, a grandmother, an aunt, and a mom. So, at our dining room table, Dad and I were always down at the end by ourselves. Because of that, we became real buddies. I watched him build EDS in our living room. Even when I was a little boy, he’d have me sit in on meetings. And on Saturdays, we’d go to the EDS data center. Most boys played with their dad on weekends—but I’ve been in data centers since I was 7 or 8 years old.”
Perot’s ability to anticipate and shape emerging trends is rooted in how he learns. He doesn’t watch television and instead is a voracious, curious reader. “The more you read, the more you realize how little you know,” he says. “You stay humble, and you keep looking for ideas and trends.” He surrounds himself with emerging leaders and embraces unconventional thinking. “My father taught me to always have young people around and to listen to their crazy ideas—because that crazy idea might really work,” he says. “You don’t want to become the old guy who says, ‘Oh, it isn’t going to work.’”
It’s one of the reasons he joined with former Perot Systems and Dell exec Anurag Jain in 2014 to form Perot Jain, a VC firm that invests in early-stage startups. “I wanted to see the new ideas and the creativity,” Perot says. “We try to start new companies every year. I learned so much from venture capital—it helps me in the mainstream business. It exposes me to the best entrepreneurs in the world.”
The lessons from his father and other visionaries have helped inform his approach to risk. Perot says he rolls the dice with profits but never “bets the ranch” or does anything that would jeopardize his company or family. He also puts his faith in DFW. When he started AllianceTexas, the region had fewer than 3 million residents. Today, it exceeds 8 million, he says, and projections show Dallas-Fort Worth reaching 12 million by 2050 and possibly 28 million by 2100.
Population growth, Perot says, is the ultimate engine of possibilities. “All you really need to do is stay focused on Dallas-Fort Worth,” he tells young professionals. “If we add another 20 million people in 70 years, there are so many opportunities, you can’t even comprehend it.”
Through Hillwood’s Mobility Innovation Zone, AllianceTexas has become a hub for autonomous trucking and drone logistics. Through partnerships with companies like MP Materials, it is helping to restore domestic supply chains for rare-earth magnets. And through a collaboration with Taylor Sheridan, it is now home to the largest film-production campus in the state.
DFW entrepreneurs, Perot says, are set up for success. “In North Texas, there’s no punishment for failure,” he explains. “You’re surrounded by entrepreneurs and risk-takers. We help each other, and we celebrate each other’s success.” State political leaders do their part, too, he adds. “We basically banned capital gains tax, banned transaction tax, and banned the wealth tax. You’re going to see more people showing up, because economic freedom works.”
Despite the enormity of his impact, Perot sees his legacy in deeply personal terms. He talks about the mentors who shaped him and the responsibility he feels to help future generations thrive. Ask him what he hopes people will remember decades from now, and he doesn’t mention his business successes or the hundreds of companies he helped attract to the region. “I hope they say I loved my family, that I tried to be the best Christian I could be, and that I loved Texas and Dallas-Fort Worth,” Perot says. “And that I did my duty.”
But even as he reflects on the past, Perot remains firmly focused on the future. He is a leader who has never slowed down—and has no intention of doing so. “We’re just warming up,” he says. “We’ve got so many great things left to do.”