Gary Acosta is an entrepreneur, public policy advocate, and investor. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP ®). With over 40,000 dues-paying members and forty-five full-time staff, NAHREP is the largest Hispanic business organization in the nation. As CEO of NAHREP, he created the Hispanic Wealth Project, a non-profit organization with a strategic plan to triple Hispanic household wealth by 2024. In 2018, Mr. Acosta co-founded L’ATTITUDE, a major event he produces with international business executive Sol Trujillo, former United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, and music superstar Emilio Estefan. Acosta is also a general partner of the L’ATTITUDE Ventures, the nation’s largest venture capital fund exclusively focused on Latino-led start-ups.
A self-described serial entrepreneur, Mr. Acosta has founded several mortgage, real estate, and technology companies, including New Vista Asset Management, which, between 2009 and 2013, managed and marketed more than 10,000 real estate assets for banks and other financial institutions, CounselorMax, a web-based process management system for non-profit housing counselors, and RealEstateEspanol.com, an online real estate portal for Spanish-speaking Americans, which eventually sold to a publicly traded company. In 2013, he co-founded The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC), a cooperative corporation of more than 200 mortgage companies that work together to increase profitability and market share.
Mr. Acosta was appointed to the inaugural consumer advisory board (CAB) of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the federal regulator of the financial services industry. He served as the 2014 chairman of the CFPB mortgage committee.
The Mortgage Bankers Association of America awarded Mr. Acosta their prestigious annual “Investing in Communities” award. REALTOR® Magazine named him one of the 25 Most Influential People in real estate, and Latino Leaders Magazine named him one of the 101 Most Influential Latinos in America.
Mr. Acosta writes a weekly blog about business and current events at garyacosta.com.
Mr. Acosta serves on the board of directors for NAHREP, the Latino Donor Collaborative, and BaseCap Analytics. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America and Stewart Title Company of California. He has served on advisory boards for several Fortune 500 companies including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase. Mr. Acosta grew up in Montebello, California and attended the University of California, at San Diego and Pomona College, where he played varsity basketball for Hall of Fame Coach, Gregg Popovich. He lives with his family in San Diego, California.
