Henry Cisneros
Former HUD Secretary
Friday, May 23, 2008
Henry Cisneros is Chairman of the CityView companies,
community-building firms dedicated to producing workforce
homes in America’s cities. CityView’s mission is to work
with the nation’s leading homebuilders to create “villages
within cities,” priced within the range of average families,
designed to honor community traditions, and financed to
provide homeownership options for residents of the nation’s
cities. In order to complete that mission, CityView
identifies sites, plans neighborhoods, organizes and
develops land, and finances the building of homes.
From
1997-2000, Mr. Cisneros was president and chief operating
officer of Univision Communications, the Spanish-language
broadcaster which has become the fifth-most-watched
television network in the nation.
From 1993 to 1997, Mr. Cisneros served as Secretary of the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a
member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, Secretary Cisneros
was assigned America’s housing and community development
portfolio. He is credited with initiating the revitalization
of many of the nation’s public housing developments and with
formulating policies which have contributed to today’s
record homeownership rate.
Prior to joining the Cabinet, he was chairman of Cisneros
Asset Management Company, a fixed income management firm
operating nationally.
In 1981, Mr. Cisneros became the first Hispanic-American
mayor of a major U.S. city, San Antonio, Texas. During his
four terms in office, he helped rebuild the city’s economic
base and spurred the creation of jobs through massive
infrastructure and downtown improvements, marking San
Antonio as one of the nation’s most progressive cities.
In 1984, Mr. Cisneros was interviewed by the Democratic
Presidential nominee as a possible candidate for Vice
President of the United States and in 1986 was selected as
the “Outstanding Mayor” in the nation by City and State
Magazine.
He has served as president of the National League of Cities,
chairman of the National Civic League, deputy chair of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, board member of the
Rockefeller Foundation, and presently as National Chairman
of the After-School All-Stars. He is also a member of the
boards of Countrywide Financial, a Fortune 500 company which
is the nation’s prime originator of home mortgages; Live
Nation, an urban entertainment company; and Avanzar Interior
Technologies, an automotive technologies company.
Mr. Cisneros holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master’s degree
in Urban and Regional Planning from Texas A&M University. He
earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration from
Harvard University, a Doctorate in Public Administration
from George Washington University, and has been awarded more
than 20 honorary doctorates from leading universities. He
served as an infantry officer in the United States Army.
He was recently featured in Builder’s 2006 list of the Top
50 “Most Influential People in Home Building,” and in Latino
Leaders’ list of the Top 101 “Top Leaders of the Hispanic
Community.” In June 2007, he will be inducted into the
National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) “Builders Hall
of Fame” and honored as the “Housing Person of the Year” for
the U.S. National Housing Conference.
He has also has been the author, editor or collaborator of
several books including: Interwoven Destinies: Cities and
the Nation; Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform
for National Housing Policy; and Casa y Comunidad: Latino
Home and Neighborhood Design.
