Leo Linbeck III

Early in his career, Linbeck was co-founder of the Jafy Corporation, a software development firm. He also worked for Nishimatsu Kensetsu Kaisha in Tokyo and Osaka.[3]

Linbeck serves as CEO of Aquinas Companies, LLC. Aquinas Companies has three principal business lines: construction management (Linbeck Group), real estate development (Essex Commercial Properties), and early stage biotechnology development Fannin Innovation Studio (formerly AlphaDev).[2][4][5][6][7] The Greater Houston Community Foundation owns 30% of Aquinas Companies, LLC.[8]

Linbeck was a founder of the Collaborative Process Institute and the Lean Construction Institute.[9] Linbeck is also the founder of Fannin Innovation Studio, a venture capital operating company, or VCOC, in Houston, Texas.

Linbeck is a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. He is a former adjunct business professor at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business.[2]

Linbeck is the chairman of the Competitive Governance Institute and Competitive Governance Action.[10][11] According to the group's mission statement, Competitive Governance Action "exists to challenge the increasing domination of decision-making in Washington that disenfranchises ordinary citizens, protects incumbents from challenges to their power and position, and allows career politicians to avoid accountability for their actions."[12] The group's efforts include a "Primary Pledge" to encourage citizens to vote in primary elections, support for interstate compacts, including the Health Care Compact, and organization of a coalition to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[10]

Linbeck is the co-founder and top donor of the Campaign for Primary Accountability (CPA), a Super PAC with a stated goal of bringing "true competition to our electoral process, to give voters real information about their choices, and to restore fair, not fixed, elections."[13] According to a Mother Jones article published in March 2012, "the group's aim is to use the power of the purse to do what political parties and state redistricting panels won't—make congressional races competitive again. CFPA, which has raised $1.8 million to date, is targeting at least 10 Republican and Democratic incumbents in half a dozen states, with plans to increase that number over the next few months."[14]

According to the Dallas Morning News, "Most so-called Super PACs created in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision push specific candidates, values or policy positions. But a Texas-based group, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, has a far more unique goal: make life more difficult for more congressional incumbents. CPA is targeting incumbents for primary defeat across the nation, using a bankroll that has grown to about $1.8 million to fund challengers to Republicans and Democrats the Super PAC believes has lost touch with the people of their districts."[15]

In January 2013, Linbeck wrote an opinion editorial in Politico stating that CPA would continue to be active in the 2014 congressional elections.[16]