Officials celebrate while ringing the bell during the Nasdaq Texas Closing Bell Ceremony held at The Alamo in San Antonio on Thursday, March 5, 2026. The stock exchange rang the Closing Bell at The Alamo, commemorating the 190th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo.
Katina Zentz/Staff Photographer
Nasdaq Texas was already on the way to the moon, now it’s got its Houston.
After SpaceX, the largest initial public offering in history, dually listed its stock on Nasdaq Texas last month, the new stock exchange is announcing its advisory board.
Inaugural members include business leaders from across the state, including board chair Ed Knight, executive vice president and longtime general counsel of Nasdaq and a graduate of the University of Texas and University of Texas School of Law.
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“We were really intentional about the people that we asked to be on it. It’s a commitment from them to help us build out this platform and to partner with us. And so I think that there needed to be a mutual kind of engagement there,” said Rachel Racz, senior vice president of listings and Nasdaq Texas president. “This board brings together leaders in Texas who understand both the global capital markets and this unique opportunity that we have in Texas, and what that really represents.”
SpaceX employees celebrate during a bell ringing ceremony for the IPO of SpaceX at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, Friday, June 12, 2026, in New York.
Frank Franklin II/AP Photo
Joining Knight on the board is:
Danny David a Houston-based securities and shareholder litigation attorney and managing partner at Baker Botts
Danny Wesson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Diamondback Energy, an oil and natural gas exploration company in the Permian Basin
Jay Brown, CEO of Houston-based homebuilder David Weekley Homes and former CEO of Crown Castle International
Jill Lampert, chief financial and administrative officer of Dallas’ NGP Energy Capital Management, an energy-focused private equity firm
Pat Frost, the former president of Frost Bank, based in San Antonio and one of the largest Texas-headquartered banks
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Aside from the group’s primary careers, they work with a variety of Texas organizations. Frost serves as the president of the San Antonio Rodeo and chair of the Texas Cultural Trust. Lampert sits on councils for the University of Texas’ Kay Bailey Hutchinson Energy Center and McCombs School of Business, and Brown serves on Baylor University’s Board of Regents. David sits on the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s board of visitors, while Wesson works with the Permian Strategic Partnership.
Clockwise: Nasdaq’s Ed Knight and Gov. Rick Perry pictured in New York City on Oct. 26, 2009; Isabel and Danny David at a Rice University gala on Nov. 8, 2025; Midland Deputy Chief Brian Rackow and Diamondback Energy CEO Danny Wesson during a media day for the Midland Bomb Squad on April 3, 2024.
File photos
Clockwise: Jill Lampert, chief financial and administrative officer of Dallas’ NGP Energy Capital Management; Pat Frost, former president of Frost Bank, pictured at 2017 NCAA Final Four Tip-Off Luncheon in San Antonio; Jay Brown, pictured in 2019 and then-CEO of Crown Castle International Corp.
File photos
“I’m really excited we get to work with them, because they’re going to be providing such strategic insight into capital formation, governance, corporate policy, and really the evolving role of Texas in U.S. and global capital markets,” Racz said. “We had our first board dinner a couple of nights ago, and the conversation was just excellent, and their ideas are excellent, and their excitement around what we’re building in Texas in general. It’s going to be really fun.”
The announcement of the board is the latest news as Nasdaq Texas builds momentum. After the techier half of the U.S.’ capital markets duopoly announced a Lone Star State exchange last November, Nasdaq Texas celebrated approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in March with a splashy ceremony in front of the Alamo attended by Gov. Greg Abbott and leaders from Nasdaq Texas’ first slate of dually listed companies.
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Then the exchange, which doesn’t even have a public physical office yet, made a splash as the dual listing venue of SpaceX stock. Thanks to SpaceX’s $2 trillion valuation, Nasdaq Texas is technically the largest exchange in the state by the total market capitalization of listed companies.
Nasdaq Texas was last to the party, too, announcing months after the New York Stock Exchange launched NYSE Texas and the upstart Texas Stock Exchange received SEC approval. But Racz emphasized Nasdaq Texas is not in a hurry to get anywhere.
“This is not a five-year play for Nasdaq, it’s not a 10-year play. This has been something that we’ve been a part of for the last two decades, and now this advisory board will help us shape the next two decades,” Racz said. “We spent a lot of time listening to our clients. My first year, I had like 250 meetings, just hearing from our clients and learning what they cared about, and how we could show up for them, and that’s what we’ve continued to do along the way.”
“I think it looks like we’re being slow, but we’re being very intentional based on what our clients are asking us to do,” she finished.
Rachel Racz, a Nasdaq senior vice president, walks to the podium during the Nasdaq Texas Closing Bell Ceremony held at The Alamo in San Antonio on Thursday, March 5, 2026. The stock exchange rang the Closing Bell at The Alamo, commemorating the 190th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo.
Katina Zentz/Staff Photographer
The Nasdaq Texas advisory board will meet four times a year to provide guidance on how Nasdaq can support business growth in Texas and how Nasdaq Texas should engage in the policy-making process, and shape the exchange’s strategy within the broader Texas ecosystem. Three of those meetings will happen in Texas and one in New York, including, eventually, at a Nasdaq Texas regional headquarters that will function similar to the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square.
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“Nasdaq with boots on,” is how Racz described her vision for the location, a place where clients can host board meetings, dinners and investor days, and a nexus for connecting capital to Texas — Racz’s ultimate goal for Nasdaq Texas.
“How exciting is it that this is the largest IPO in history, right? [SpaceX] needed access to the global capital markets, and they did that through Nasdaq, but they also wanted this regional representation and the ability to be here [in Texas] and have a platform here,” Racz said. “They picked Nasdaq Texas for that. A lot of our clients are doing that. That’s what’s really cool: we get to build all of that here.”