Texas’ population is projected to expand to more than 35 million people within the next decade. This growth is especially pronounced in the North Texas region, which is expected to become America’s third-largest metropolitan area with a projected population of more than 10 million people. The region has already experienced a 16 percent growth rate since 2010, and strong economic development efforts have brought new businesses to the region, fundamentally changing the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s talent and skills landscape. At the heart of the world’s eighth largest economy, the North Texas region boasts a network of top thriving communities, the most top-quality higher education institutions located in a Texas metro area, and 24 of the state’s 54 Fortune 500 company headquarters.

Future Success

To ensure the North Texas region has the workforce needed to fuel the state’s growing economy, the University of North Texas convened a broad coalition of stakeholders to launch the Texas Talent Accelerator in September 2025.

The Texas Talent Accelerator will serve as a regional collaborative that serves as an intelligence network, connecting employers, educational institutions, chambers of commerce, economic development partners, and other partner organizations to anticipate — and meet — workforce needs while bolstering innovation and technological advancement in a thriving business corridor.

The Texas Talent Accelerator has several key objectives:

• Enhance regional economic development, including business attraction and retention efforts, by meeting employers’ talent needs through an integrated ecosystem
• Increase engagement with businesses and employers through a consistent, coordinated experience working with education partners to improve skilled talent in the region
• Leverage collective capabilities to generate real-time, actionable intelligence about current and future regional industry demands and talent pipelines while also forecasting innovation trends
• Provide strategic insights that drive meaningful collaboration, breaking down institutional silos that impede coordinated efforts to meet industry needs at scale
• Inform the design and alignment of academic curricula, work-integrated learning, and credentials with the region’s high-demand occupations and sectors

Key Partners

In addition to UNT and the initial design partners, the Texas Talent Accelerator will seek to convene a broad coalition of stakeholders, including:

• Anchor Employers: Industry executives representing key industry sectors providing critical insights into current and emerging industry demands for talent and associated skills and training requirements
• Educational Institutions: Colleges and universities working together to meet current and emerging workforce needs at scale by providing programs and credentials of value to students and employers while creating alignment across talent pipelines
• Economic Development Partners: Chambers, EDCs, and industry associations focused on enhancing the economic vitality of the region, connecting and supporting employers across key sectors and industries, and ensuring Dallas-Fort Worth’s continued economic growth and success
• Partner Organizations: Nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, workforce boards, and other regional, state, and national partners focused on expanding postsecondary educational and economic opportunities

Regional Challenges

Despite a strong economy and unprecedented growth, the Dallas-Fort Worth area is experiencing widening gaps between current and emerging workforce needs and our ability to develop skilled talent at the necessary scale and speed. The region is constrained by:

• Technological innovation rapidly outpacing traditional educational and training models
• Inadequate real-time intelligence about changing regional workforce demands
• Fragmented approaches to talent development across educational institutions
• Misalignment between academic program designs and emerging industry skills
• Structural barriers preventing coordinated responses to economic changes

While pockets of innovation exist across our educational and training ecosystem, the current landscape remains fundamentally disconnected from each other and from employers in the region. Individual higher education institutions and programs, however promising, cannot independently address the complex, system-wide challenges of talent development in a rapidly evolving economic environment. The result creates a strategic vulnerability for the North Texas region, because of an inability to leverage the immense potential of our region's educational assets to support the growth of the region and improve the economic prosperity of its residents.

Leadership

Ben Magill, CEcD, serves as the inaugural chief economic development officer and executive director of the Texas Talent Accelerator at the University of North Texas. Magill has worked as an economic development professional for municipalities, public schools, chambers of commerce, community colleges and universities in North Texas since 2006. In 2015, Magill became the founding executive director of the Labor Market Intelligence Center at Dallas College. In 2022, Magill and his team were awarded an $8.8 million Good Jobs Challenge grant by the U.S. Economic Development Administration to create a regional workforce training collaborative to prepare and place people in entry-level jobs in the emerging Biotech and Life Sciences ecosystem. Additionally, Magill recently guided the launch of (9) regional Next Gen Sector Partnerships. Magill is a Certified Economic Developer (CEcD) and earned an Executive Certificate in Economic Development from the Harvard Kennedy School as well as a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Oklahoma State University. Magill is an alumnus of Leadership Dallas and the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunity Leadership Academy. Magill serves on the North Central Texas Council of Governments' Economic Development District Board, the board of Impact Ventures and the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center board.

Founding Design Partners

The University of North Texas serves as the founding partner for the Texas Talent Accelerator, bringing together key stakeholders from across the North Texas region. Initial design partners include:

Contact the Texas Talent Accelerator
For more information, email Executive Director Ben Magill.