Fernando De Leon is the founder and CEO of Leon Capital Group, a holding company that operates assets in the financial services, healthcare, real estate, and technology industries. Leon is not a private equity fund; it operates as a family holding company overseeing $10 billion of its own private assets.

Leon takes the lead conceiving, developing, owning, and operating businesses. It started as a modest privately-owned real estate development company in Texas, and has since evolved into a diverse holding company, capable of operating successfully across multiple geographies and industries. Leon Capital, its affiliates and externally managed companies encompass ~ 8,000 employees.

For the past 20 years, Mr. De Leon has structured investments with an asset value of $20B+. Leon Capital’s vehicles have invested in or developed approximately 20,000 rental housing units, 25M SF of industrial, 30M SF of retail, self storage and healthcare assets and 10,000 residential lots in subdivisions.

Leon’s current portfolio includes 10,000 apartments and 10 million square feet of industrial real estate in various markets across the southwestern and southeastern U.S. Additionally, Leon Capital, along with the Perot Companies, co-founded a European industrial holding company, which currently controls over $2.5 billion in industrial assets in the European Union.

In the healthcare sector, Mr. De Leon and his team at Leon founded and currently operate Specialty Dental Brands, Frontline Dental Implant Specialists, Advanced Med Aesthetic Partners, Physician Directed Partners, Texas Heart Partners, Mattison Avenue, and Turnwell Mental Health.

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 real estate professionals with real time transaction data.

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 twenty students annually across the state of Texas, who endeavor to improve their communities.

Joshua Canafax is the Chief Investment Officer of Real Estate at Leon Capital Group, where he currently serves on the firm’s Investment Committee, oversees investor relations and is responsible for the establishment and oversight of the strategic direction, capitalization, and portfolio management of each real estate platform.

Mr. Canafax’s career with Leon spans over a decade where he was instrumental in the formative years of the firm and has participated in over 400 transactions encompassing $8 billion of real estate value across the U.S. and Europe. He played a critical role in the establishment of Leon’s European Industrial holding company partnership with the Perot Companies with current holdings surpassing $2.5 billion and was heavily involved in Leon’s early operating companies in healthcare and technology. Mr. Canafax’s breadth of experience spans all facets of the life cycle of an investment, and he currently oversees Leon’s real estate holdings in the European Industrial, Healthcare and Special Situations verticals.

Mr. Canafax started his real estate career at Realpage, Inc. as a key member of the Asset Optimization/MPF Research team, the leading Multifamily Market Research team in the U.S., where he oversaw data analytics and forecasting across all major U.S. markets and played a vital role in expanding the firm’s market coverage.

Mr. Canafax received a Master of Real Estate degree from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and graduated summa cum laude from Midwestern State University with a Bachelor of Business Administration double major in Finance and Accounting.

Austin DiCambio serves as a Director at Leon Capital Group where he is responsible for acquiring healthcare assets and development sites.  Austin’s responsibilities include sourcing, underwriting, due diligence,  acquisition, and execution of new investment opportunities. Prior to joining Leon Capital Group, Austin held acquisition roles at NETSTREIT and US Restaurant Properties.  His primary responsibilities included sourcing, underwriting, evaluating, marketing, and structuring single tenant net lease transactions. Over his career Austin has participated in asset transactions valued at over $500 million. 

Austin graduated from the University of Dallas with a degree in Economics and played for the basketball team.

Austin Phillips is an Associate supporting both business development and investment activities. Prior to joining Leon Capital Group, Austin was employed at CBRE and Welltower. During this time Austin had varying responsibilities including debt procurement, asset management, and business development.

Austin attended Texas Christian University, graduating with a degree in Economics

Amanda Gentile joined Leon Capital Group in 2022 as Senior Fund Accountant in the Healthcare Real Estate division. Her responsibilities include transaction and full-cycle accounting, asset management, investor reporting and portfolio operations. Prior to joining LCG, Amanda was an Associate at Grant Thornton, LLP in the audit practice. While at Grant Thornton, Amanda’s Client experience included both publicly and privately held companies in the financial services, technology, and energy sectors.

Amanda attended Texas Tech University – Rawls College of Business, graduating with an undergraduate degree in Accounting and a graduate degree in Accounting with an emphasis on Financial Reporting.