From left: Chair Gilbert Gerst, Vice Chairman Jimmy Tran, Treasurer Ardo Fuentes, and Secretary Dania Duncan Moreno are the new board officers for the Dallas Economic Development Corporation.

The Dallas Economic Development Corporation announced today it has elected four new officers to its executive committee, tapping a banker with nearly four decades of experience to lead the board.

Gilbert Gerst, who leads community development at BOK Financial Corporation across seven states, will chair the Dallas EDC board. He takes over an organization tasked with positioning Dallas as a competitive business destination and creating economic opportunities citywide.

“I am eager to work alongside the new board officers, who bring diverse business backgrounds and represent various industries in our city,” Gerst said in a statement. “Together, we will enhance our efforts to support and promote Dallas.”

Gerst, who joined the Dallas EDC board in 2022, specializes in real estate financing for low-income housing tax credit projects at BOK Financial. His role involves overseeing compliance and community development lending across Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri.

Tran serves as market director for North Texas at Optima Mergers & Acquisitions and previously led corporate strategy and M&A for a $10 billion segment at CBRE, managing more than $2 billion in acquisitions. He also founded Oaklawn Group, an investment firm focused on real estate and income-producing assets.

Fuentes works as senior vice president of investments at Stifel, helping individuals and family offices manage their financial needs. His background includes stints at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York and Robertson Stephens in San Francisco.

Duncan Moreno brings cross-border expertise as a commercial real estate partner at Bell Nunnally & Martin, licensed in both Texas and Mexico. Her practice spans domestic and international real estate transactions across hospitality, retail, industrial, and residential sectors.

Earlier this year, the Dallas EDC announced that Chris Heinbaugh and Ambassador Jeanne Johnson Phillips to the board.

The nonprofit, established in 2022, operates as a city-backed corporation to drive economic growth and highlight Dallas’s “unparalleled opportunities” as a business hub. The board named Linda McMahon as its first CEO in 2024.

Don’t miss what’s next. Subscribe to Dallas Innovates.

Track Dallas-Fort Worth’s business and innovation landscape with our curated news in your inbox Tuesday-Thursday.

 

R E A D   N E X T

  • North Texas has plenty to see, hear, and watch. Here are our editors’ picks. Plus, you’ll find more selections to “save the date.”

  • The southern half of Dallas County is home to just over 1.05 million residents. That’s about 40% of the total number of people who call Dallas County home—and roughly 200,000 more than the entire population of San Francisco. Coupled with the fact that Dallas-Fort Worth is emerging as a top life science market, as documented in a 2023 CBRE report, you can see why the DeSoto Development Corp. is including an 80-acre Life Sciences Innovation Core among its major projects. “In terms of economic development, research shows that it’s more effective when it happens regionally,” says Matt Carlson, DDC’s chief…

  • Explore and discover why Dallas-Fort Worth is one of the fastest-growing regions in the U.S. in this comprehensive guide.

  • UT Dallas researcher Dr. Walter Voit transformed Minecraft’s 170-million-player universe into an advanced virtual training ground—for students and for AI agents tested by DARPA. His team’s Polycraft World uses gameplay to turn classroom theory into real-world expertise, covering topics from synthetic organic chemistry to nuclear plants to semiconductor facilities. Their new startup company, Pedegree Studios, has licensed the core technologies from the university to create a scalable digital pipeline for education and workforce development.

  • Combining cutting-edge research and real-world applications, the UT Dallas professor transforms public health with innovations in detection technology, including “a check engine light” for the human body. In collaboration with EnLiSense, the company she cofounded, Dr. Prasad combines chemistry with software and hardware to bring the technology to life as market-ready devices.