Our team

Fernando De Leon is the founder and CEO of Leon Capital Group, a holding company overseeing twelve independently-managed subsidiaries in the three divisions: financial services, healthcare and real estate. Leon is not a private equity fund, it operates as a family holding company that takes the lead conceiving, developing, owning, and operating businesses.

Founded as a modest real estate development company in Texas, Leon has since evolved into a diverse holding company, capable of operating successfully across multiple geographies and industries. Today, Leon’s subsidiaries and externally managed companies encompass ~ 4,000 employees.

In Leon’s healthcare branch, Mr. De Leon and his team at Leon founded and currently operate Specialty Dental Brands, Frontline Dental Implant Specialists, Advanced Medaesthetic Partners, Physician Directed Partners, Texas Heart Partners, Mattison Avenue, and Turnwell Mental Health which collectively manage over 300 locations and provide healthcare to approximately 2 million people annually.

In Leon’s real estate holdings, Mr. De Leon has structured real estate investments with an asset value of $15B+. Leon Capital’s vehicles have invested in or developed approximately 20,000 rental housing units, 25M SF of industrial, 15M SF of retail, self-storage, healthcare assets, and 15,000 lots of land in residential subdivisions. Additionally, Leon Capital, along with the Perot Companies, co-founded a European industrial operating company, which has developed over 40M SF of industrial assets in the European Union.

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 3M real estate professionals with real time transaction data.

In the financial services branch, Leon Capital Management currently operates the investment management business and its various fund offerings. Leon Financial holds banking and insurance interests and operates Patient Capital, a specialty lending business designed to increase the accessibility of all Americans to critical health care offerings.

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

Hunter Dallas serves as the President for the Direct Investment division of Leon Capital Group (LCG). He is responsible for sourcing platform acquisitions, strategy execution, operational excellence, transaction structuring, and seeking new ways to achieve organic and inorganic growth. While at LCG he has led the creation of multiple billion dollar+ businesses built around entrepreneurial partners.

During his tenure at LCG, Mr. Dallas has co-founded multiple healthcare service focused management service organizations, where he has played a pivotal role in pioneering the integration of different specialties to provide the business services to expand access to care. Under his leadership, the various companies have built over $3.0 billion in enterprise value with operations across the country. The various companies support over 300 clinics while maintaining a workforce of over 3,500 dedicated employees.

Prior to joining LCG, Mr. Dallas was in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs in the financing group. He previously worked at Caterpillar Financial in their in-house management consulting program where he held various credit and operational roles.

Mr. Dallas received a B.A. in Economics from Vanderbilt University.

David Cocanougher serves as President of the Multifamily Division at Leon Capital Group. David is responsible for directing development and construction of ground-up projects, portfolio-level oversight of operations and asset management of the existing properties and conducting special projects focusing on housing development. While at Leon Capital Group, David has successfully implemented an acquisition and development platform that has completed and sold over 6,500 units and has another 9,000 units under construction or in development.  David is also responsible for the growth and oversight of Leon Multifamily Construction, which performs as the general contractor for the development pipeline.  Under David’s leadership, Leon Capital Group has increased its multifamily market presence in all major Texas metros and has established a development pipeline that includes Phoenix, Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill, and Florida.  David’s experience prior to joining the company includes on-campus student housing development, conventional and student value-add acquisitions and asset management as well as implementation of revenue management strategies for a broad range of national apartment operators and developers.  In all, David has been responsible for over $3 Billion in multifamily asset transactions and is currently overseeing the growth of the team, entry into new markets, and the development and construction of all new projects.  David received his undergraduate degree in Business from Texas A&M University, where he later obtained a Masters in Land Economics and Real Estate.

Prior to joining Leon Capital Group, Sean was responsible for creating and growing the development department for Dalfen Industrial, one of the nation’s largest buyers of industrial real estate.  During his tenure at Dalfen Industrial, he grew the company’s pipeline of projects from two company owned parcels totaling 16 acres to a nationwide, billion-dollar pipeline of more than 1,000 acres and more than 11 million square feet in 3.5 years.

Prior to joining Dalfen, Sean was a Development Director at Hillwood Investment Properties, where he was responsible for leading the development of warehouses, distribution centers, and logistics-oriented properties in Memphis, Nashville, and Cincinnati. Prior to Hillwood, Sean managed redevelopment projects totaling 3.7 million square feet for Rouse Properties.

Sean earned a Bachelor of Science in Building Construction from The Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Georgia.

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 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.

Known for her business philosophies of “profits with integrity” and “profit optimization through collaboration,” Nicole Chiaramonte developed AMP, a superior alternative to the traditional private equity acquisition model. A serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of medical and business management, Nicole holds 19 years of Management Service Organization (MSO) ownership and executive management in the legal and medical industries. Through Nicole’s leadership, AMP is redefining the aesthetics industry by partnering with practices to provide innovative and industry-leading support that grows practices beyond their current potential.

Mr. DeGiorgio founded Crexi in 2015, after identifying an inherent need to create an open marketplace and technology solution for the commercial real estate industry. Prior to founding Crexi, he helped establish Auction.com (now Ten-X), the online auction platform, where he spent four years managing teams and earning a reputation as one of the top sales producers in the company. There, Mr. DeGiorgio managed 400+ CRE transactions and teams totaling $1B+ over four years.

Mr. DeGiorgio earned his Business Degree from Northern Illinois University, from which he won the 2018 Outstanding Young Alumni award and where he also serves as a visiting lecturer teaching entrepreneurship to business students.

Chris Scales currently serves as Specialty Dental Brand’s Chief Financial Officer, a position he assumed in February 2017 as part of the management team that launched Specialty Dental Brands, an oral health organization supporting the nation’s top pediatric dentists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, and endodontists with best in class business support.

Prior to SDB, Mr. Scales worked with the Healthcare Transaction Advisory Group at Ernst Young. During this time, he led or participated in due diligence efforts relating to a multitude of buy-side and sell-side transactions in the health care industry, ranging in size from $5 million to $1 billion. Mr. Scales previously worked as the Director of Finance/Controller at Parallon/HCA’s Nashville Shared Service Center. He began his career in May 2009 as an auditor for LBMC.

Mr. Scales graduated with a BS in Economics from Western Kentucky University and received his Master of Accountancy from the Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business at Belmont University. He is a licensed CPA in the state of Tennessee.