FORT WORTH, Texas — The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's 47th Annual National Conference is now inside its final planning stretch, set to open September 14 and run through September 16 at the Fort Worth Convention Center. Since organizers first named Fort Worth as host, the event has moved from a bare announcement to a fully mapped-out three-day program, complete with named sessions, assigned speakers and specific start times — a level of detail that simply wasn't public even a few months ago.
A First-Time Host in North Texas
USHCC leadership unveiled Fort Worth as the 2026 host city during the closing gala of its 46th conference in Atlanta in late September 2025, with a formal written release following on October 2. The three-day gathering will fill the Fort Worth Convention Center and represents the first time the chamber's flagship event has come to North Texas. USHCC Chairwoman Jackie Puente, who also serves as Comcast's external-affairs vice president, said Fort Worth "showcases the innovation, diversity and economic impact of Hispanic-owned businesses nationwide." Local organizers treated the pick as payoff for a long courtship: in a social-media post highlighted by the Fort Worth Report, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Ericka Garza wrote that thousands of business leaders "will saddle up and head to Cowtown."
USHCC President and CEO Ramiro Cavazos pointed to Fort Worth's business-friendly reputation, citing its manufacturing and logistics base and its history of attracting corporate relocations, as reasons behind the choice. Fort Worth's turn as a national Latino gathering spot didn't wait for USHCC, though: the League of United Latin American Citizens brought its own national convention to the Fort Worth Convention Center from June 17 through 20, months ahead of USHCC's arrival, giving the city back-to-back turns hosting national Latino civic and business gatherings this year.
Building on a Record Atlanta Turnout
The Fort Worth event follows a 46th conference in Atlanta that drew more than 1,200 attendees spanning small-business owners, corporate sponsors and government officials. That gathering featured appearances from Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, actor Cheech Marin and NASCAR's Daniel Suárez, and wrapped with the graduation of the fifth class of USHCC's Avanzando Supplier Development Program, a Blue Wave partnership that has now pushed more than 20 companies across a dozen states through supply-chain and compliance training. What Fort Worth's turn will mean for the local economy remains an open question: when USHCC's 2024 conference landed in Kansas City, tourism officials there put the number at roughly 2,000 attendees generating about $2 million in local spending — a benchmark that only loosely applies given the differences in city size and expected turnout, and no Fort Worth-specific projection has surfaced since.
The Names Drawing National Attention
USHCC's running speaker list has grown past three dozen names. The most nationally recognizable remains Ken Salazar, who served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2021 to 2025 and, earlier, as interior secretary under President Obama and as a U.S. senator from Colorado. Also on the roster is Ross Perot Jr., chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Companies, whose family's real-estate and aviation ventures helped build out North Texas's Alliance corridor. Rounding out the marquee names is Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder and chief operating officer of Kalshi, the prediction-market platform her USHCC speaker biography credits with clearing more than $100 billion in contracts annually.
Fort Worth's own civic and corporate leadership fills out the rest of the program: Mayor Mattie Parker, Oncor chief executive Allen Nye, DFW International Airport CEO Christopher McLaughlin, Texas Transportation Commissioner Alex Meade and Texas Economic Development Executive Director Adriana Cruz are all confirmed, alongside university presidents from North Texas and Hispanic chamber leaders from San Antonio, Austin and El Paso.
Inside the Now-Published Agenda
Where the picture was murkier earlier this year, USHCC has since posted a full, hour-by-hour agenda covering all three days. Salazar appears on a Tuesday-morning breakfast session billed as AI, Workforce and What's Next, sharing the stage with Mayor Parker and Bank of America's Fort Worth president, Mike Pavell. Perot is booked for a Wednesday fireside chat called Building Forward: Next Era of Opportunity, alongside Comcast's Bret Perkins and JPMorgan's Brian Page. Lopes Lara appears in a separate Wednesday-morning fireside chat titled From Uncertainty to Insight: How Prediction Markets Help America's Businesses Plan Ahead. Beyond those three, the published schedule adds dozens of named breakout sessions on topics from ownership succession and supplier partnerships to international sales and transit contracts, plus procurement roundtables with Walmart, Verizon, Oncor and Southwest Airlines.
Even with that level of detail now public, USHCC has not designated any one speaker as the keynote. The sessions are billed as a run of general-session breakfasts, luncheons and fireside chats rather than a single headline address, echoing how last year's Atlanta program was structured. Taken together, the AI, infrastructure and prediction-market sessions sketch the conference's throughline: what artificial intelligence means for hiring and operations, how infrastructure investment is reshaping opportunity, and how new forecasting tools can help businesses plan through uncertainty.
This Year's Theme
The conference carries the banner Unstoppable: Achieving Success and Powering America's Growth, used throughout USHCC's registration site and marketing. Outside the mainstage, the program keeps its familiar shape: breakout sessions led by industry specialists, supplier-matchmaking opportunities, and the Plaza Mercado marketplace, where local vendors sell directly to attendees. Registration and the event's mobile app are both already live, though USHCC still cautions that breakout topics could shift based on evolving policy priorities and speaker availability.
For Texas Hispanic business owners, and for the wider network of chambers USHCC represents from Houston to Miami, hosting the conference puts North Texas's growth story in front of a national Latino business audience — a spotlight the city already had a preview of this year, having also hosted LULAC's national convention back in June. How large that audience turns out to be, and what it leaves behind economically, won't be clear until the doors open in September.
