3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Phillip Yates of Equiliberty, Chris Quintanilla, of Mexcor International, and David Hudson of Circulus. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from diversity and inclusion tech to sustainable plastics — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Phillip Yates, founder of Equiliberty

Phillip Yates joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss two initiatives he's launching to support diverse founders in Houston. Photo courtesy of Equiliberty

Houston is currently celebrating its first Black Entrepreneurship Week, thanks to local entrepreneur and lawyer, Phillip Yates, who founded Equiliberty — a tech company focused on connecting and supporting entrepreneurs of color.

BEW has put on several opportunities — from the Black Market, which will allow people to shop local Black merchants, to a special Giving Tuesday event to support Black-focused nonprofits in Houston. Specifically, Yates wants to target a multi-generational crowd — that's what's goring to drive lasting changes.

"When you have a wealth initiative, you can't just talk to the parents or the youth — you're still going to have a missing link there," Yates says on last week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast, explaining the week's wealth challenge that will reinforce this idea. Click here to read more.

Chris Quintanilla, chief sales officer at Mexcor International

This Houston company created its own in-house tech infrastructure — led by Chris Quintanilla — to stay competitive within the alcohol distribution industry. Photo courtesy of Mexcor International

When Chris Quintanilla wasn't happy with his company's software, he built it himself. Mexcor International is a Houston-based importer and distributor of wine, spirits, and other types of alcohol. On his own, Quintanilla has developed 46 dashboards that supply details about things such as wine and beer inventory, contacts for account managers, product catalogs, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the sales team.

Quintanilla says in-house creation of this system aligns with Mexcor International's culture of "wearing multiple hats" to move the business forward, demanding in-house innovation on the tech front.

"If you want to see something happen, you have to grab the bull by the horns and do it yourself," he says. "We are a medium-sized company. We just hired a true IT person in the last two or three years. We don't have million-dollar budgets for big IT departments. We kind of figure it out as we go." Click here to read more.

David Hudson, founder and CEO of Circulus

Houston-based Circulus, which just received a $100 million credit facility, focuses on innovative plastics recycling. Photo via circulus.com

Circulus Holdings secured a $100 million credit facility from Riverstone Credit Partners, which has an office in Houston. This "green" loan is aimed at supporting environmental sustainability.

David Hudson, founder and CEO of Circulus, says in a news release that the credit facility "enables Circulus to rapidly develop a broad network of facilities and further the company's commitment to sustainable manufacturing. We look forward to supporting green-based jobs and preserving our environment for future generations."

Circulus, a portfolio company of Houston-based private equity firm Ara Partners, recently opened its first plastics recycling facility. The 110,000-square-foot plant is in Riverbank, California, near Modesto. It employs 45 people. So far, other Circulus plants, each of which will be larger than the California facility, are planned for Alabama, Oklahoma, the Midwest, and the Northeast. Click here to read more.

How this Houston-based alcohol importer, distributor uses tech to stay ahead of the curve

boozy innovation

You might say that Mexcor International, a Houston-based importer and distributor of wine, spirits, and other types of alcohol, relies on a single bottle of vodka rather than a case of vodka when it comes to its tech capabilities.

The annual tech budget for the 300-employee company, founded in 1989, falls well below $500,000. Mexcor International's annual revenue hovers around $300 million.

"We do have a decent size tech budget, but it's tiny in comparison to large distributors with multimillion-dollar tech budgets," says Chris Quintanilla, chief sales officer at Mexcor International.

The company leans on an IT director, an IT specialist, and an IT support company to handle tech needs. In other words, Mexcor International's in-house tech resources are minimal.

So, when the company's sales and administration sales team needed to step up its tech game, Quintanilla created a cloud-based software system combining customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) functions to churn out real-time reporting on inventory, deliveries, and other business matters. He took on the project equipped with IT knowledge he picked up online and at a three-day training session in Colorado, coupled with some simple tech tinkering.

On his own, Quintanilla has developed 46 dashboards that supply details about things such as wine and beer inventory, contacts for account managers, product catalogs, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the sales team. About 230 employees, or roughly three-fourths of the company's workforce, can access these dashboards. Information on these dashboards can help employees answer myriad questions, such as "Which delivery trucks are arriving today?" or "What percentage of orders are being picked up tonight?"

Quintanilla says one of the key benefits of the dashboards is the ability to see how soon the company will run out of various products at its Texas, California, Florida, and Louisiana warehouses. This functionality enables the company to swiftly head off shortages. It has come in especially handy amid ongoing supply chain snags triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, he says.

The dashboards also let Mexcor International track which customers' sales have risen or fallen compared with the same time a month or a year ago. With this information at their fingertips, salespeople can chat with customers about whether, for instance, they might like to substitute a brand of poorly selling tequila for another brand of tequila, according to Quintanilla.

In short, the innovation spearheaded by Quintanilla has helped propel Mexcor International well beyond the old days of pen and paper, photocopies, and faxes.

So, why are companies like Quintanilla's turning to in-house capabilities to push past the pen-and-paper approach?

"Companies that develop their own technology have more control over their strategic direction and can better respond to the needs of the market. This can mean a significant competitive advantage when a company develops a compulsory technology before the competition," technology and innovation strategist Evans Baiya wrote for AllBusiness.com.

In a 2020 survey by Boston Consulting Group, 46 percent of corporate executives around the world planned to invest more in their in-house tech capabilities.

"Every enterprise must re-evaluate the capabilities that it can develop in-house with the talent it has and determine which ones to procure from service providers," the consulting giant says. "By building capabilities in-house, companies can reduce the risk of their transformation projects stalling and turn to service providers in areas where they suffer from talent gaps."

At Mexcor International, Quintanilla has stepped in to fill much of the company's gap in tech talent.

Mexcor International established the new cloud-based CRM and ERP system in 2019. It replaced a clunky network-based setup hampered by unwieldy financial, sales, delivery, and routing modules.

"It was just so slow. You could not get the information you needed, and the network was always down," says Quintanilla, adding that the company's network-based system had sustained ransomware and malware attacks.

With the cloud-based system now in place, Mexcor International employees can perform an array of tasks via laptop, desktop, tablet, or smartphone, he says.

Quintanilla says in-house creation of this system aligns with Mexcor International's culture of "wearing multiple hats" to move the business forward, demanding in-house innovation on the tech front.

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Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to launch this year

gearing up

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year.

“We are immensely proud of the achievements to date and the exceptional record of safety performance as we advance towards commercial startup,” Hollub said of Stratos.

Carbon dioxide captured by Stratos will be stored underground or be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Oxy says Stratos is the world’s largest DAC facility. It’s designed to pull 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and either store it underground or use it for enhanced oil recovery. Enhanced oil recovery extracts oil from unproductive reservoirs.

Most of the carbon credits that’ll be generated by Stratos through 2030 have already been sold to organizations such as Airbus, AT&T, All Nippon Airways, Amazon, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and TD Bank.

The infrastructure business of investment manager BlackRock has pumped $550 million into Stratos through a joint venture with 1PointFive.

As it gears up to kick off operations at Stratos, Occidental is also in talks with XRG, the energy investment arm of the United Arab Emirates-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., to form a joint venture for the development of a DAC facility in South Texas. Occidental has been awarded up to $650 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the South Texas DAC hub.

The South Texas project, to be located on the storied King Ranch, will be close to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Initially, the roughly 165-square-mile site is expected to capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the potential to store up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

“We believe that carbon capture and DAC, in particular, will be instrumental in shaping the future energy landscape,” Hollub said.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

New app by Sports Illustrated grants access to 700 sports courts in Houston

Goal!

A new sports center booking app CatchCorner, powered by Sports Illustrated, enables sports enthusiasts in Houston to seamlessly secure a spot for a quick game without membership fees.

It soft-launched in Houston this spring and, according to co-founder and chief operating officer Maya Azouri, has been a huge success.

"The Houston expansion has been jaw-dropping," she said. "Up until now, CatchCorner’s launch in New York City had been our most successful market, but Houston has launched on par with it."

Within a 30-day period this summer, over 30,000 users join the app, Azouri noted, adding that the app would include 700 unique recreational spaces users can choose from in the city.

"There’s a real sports culture here, with athletes of all levels from casual weekend players to competitive amateurs and even pros. The diversity of the sports community, combined with the number of high-quality facilities across the city, makes it a perfect fit for CatchCorner," she said.

CatchCorner in Houston offers bookings for basketball, volleyball, soccer, pickleball, padel, baseball, badminton, and tennis, with plans to include golf simulators and ice rink sports soon. The Zone Sports, Toros HTX, PAC Gym, and Houston Pickleball Center are among the most popular venues.

Using the app is a snap. Once you pick your sport, venues with available slots are listed including distance from you with the booking schedules in the results so there are no surprises. The slots can go fast, so occasional error messages pop up when trying to book, but it's otherwise a three-click process. CatchCorner also helpfully includes a picture of the facilities while booking.

CatchCorner announced Google integration in June that lets users book through the app directly from searches when they look up specific venues. This is slightly less intuitive to use than the app, but it does ultimately work in both mobile and desktops versions. Either way, it greatly streamlines the booking process for people who just want to schedule a quick pickup game somewhere.

"It’s especially useful for casual players or people who want to organize something on short notice," said Azouri. "Whether it’s a weekend basketball run, a weekday futsal match, or a spontaneous pickleball game with friends, CatchCorner makes it easy to coordinate without the usual logistical headaches.

"Some feedback here has been that we’re like 'Expedia for sports.' It’s because booking a flight online is that easy, booking your next game or workout should be just as simple."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

10 Houston billionaires make Forbes' list of richest Americans in 2025

The Rich List

America's wealthiest billionaires are $1.2 trillion richer in 2025, bringing their collective worth to a staggering $6.6 trillion. And Houston's own Richard Kinder has become the richest billionaire in the city, according to the new Forbes 400.

The Kinder Morgan chairman is the 11th richest Texas resident and ranks as the 108th richest American. Kinder also dethroned Tilman Fertitta to claim the title as the wealthiest Houstonian.

The annual Forbes 400 list is a definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans, using interviews, financial data, and documentation provided by billionaires and their companies.

Kinder's wealth

The publication estimates Kinder's net worth at $10.6 billion, up from $8.1 billion last year. He also appears among Forbes' separate list of the richest billionaires in the world.

"It’s been a year unlike any we’ve seen in the four decades we’ve tracked America’s billionaire class,” said Forbes senior editor Chase Peterson-Withorn in a press release. "The super-rich at the very top are richer than ever — and between the White House and the booming stock market, they’re as powerful as they’ve ever been."

Kinder, 80, co-founded oil and gas pipeline firm Kinder Morgan in 1997, which is now known as one of the largest American energy infrastructure companies. He stepped down as CEO in 2015, though he still chairs the board of directors.

Kinder and his wife, Nancy, also founded Houston-based nonprofit the Kinder Foundation in 1997. The organization provides "major gifts to public causes with the intention of helping people realize healthy and rewarding lives," according to its website.

In May 2025, the Kinders pledged $150 million to Texas Children's Hospital and MD Anderson to create the Kinder Children's Cancer Center.

"Our philanthropic efforts center on supporting transformational projects in Houston, and this initiative exemplifies that mission in every way," said Kinder in a press release. "We were deeply impressed by the extraordinary leadership and unwavering commitment of both UT MD Anderson and Texas Children’s to pursue a bold, collaborative model of care. It is a rare and powerful moment when two leading organizations come together to create something entirely new – something capable of reshaping the future of pediatric cancer care."

The richest Houstonians

In all, 43 Texas billionaires made it on the 2025 Forbes 400 list, and 10 are based in the Houston metro.

Hospitality honcho Fertitta, 68, is the second-richest billionaire in Houston, and his net worth has jumped from $10.1 billion last year to $11 billion in 2025. He owns the Golden Nugget Casinos, the Houston Rockets, Texas-based restaurant and entertainment company Landry's, and also serves as the U.S. Ambassador to Italy.

"Serving as President Trump's ambassador to Italy 'is a real job,' says Fertitta, who personally oversaw the renovation of Villa Taverna, the ambassador's residence in Rome," Forbes wrote in his profile.

Fertitta most recently put his ritzy 250-foot-long superyacht on the market for about $192 million, with Forbes saying he "has a bigger one on order."

Here's how the rest of Houston's billionaires fared on this year's list:

Oil tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand ties for No. 123 nationally with an estimated net worth of $10 billion. Last year: $7.6 billion.
Toyota mega-dealer Dan Friedkin ranks 128th nationally with an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion. Last year: $7.6 billion.
Houston pipeline heir Randa Duncan Williams ranks 130th with an estimated net worth of $9.5 billion. Fellow pipeline heirs Dannine Avara and Milane Frantz tie for 135th nationally. Each has an estimated net worth of $9.4 billion. Scott Duncan ranks No. 141 with a $9.2 billion estimated net worth.
Houston Texans owner Janice McNair ranks 201st nationally with an estimated net worth of $7.3 billion. Last year: $6.2 billion.
Energy exploration chief exec George Bishop of The Woodlands ranks No. 325 with an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion. Last year: $5 billion.

Richest billionaires elsewhere in Texas

The richest person in America in 2025 is none other than Austin-based Elon Musk. Musk, 54, saw his net worth skyrocket to $428 billion this year, or $184 billion more than his 2024 net worth. He claimed the No. 1 spot for the fourth time.

Walmart heiress Alice Walton of Fort Worth was dubbed the wealthiest woman in America for 2025. Walton, 75, simultaneously holds the title as the richest woman in the world. Forbes estimates Walton's net worth at $106 billion (up from $89.2 billion last year) and proclaims her as the first female centibillionaire (a person with a 12-digit fortune) in America. Now that's wealth.

"Tariffs. Inflation. Slowing employment. None of it has hit the fortunes of America’s billionaires," Forbes said. "A decade ago, when it took $1.7 billion to make The Forbes 400, a net worth of $3.8 billion was comfortably within the top half of the ranking — now that lofty sum is the minimum required."

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