Luis Benitez is the Vice President for government affairs and global impact at the VF Corporation, a $23 billion holding company that includes some of the outdoor industry’s most iconic brands.
Prior to joining the VF Corporation, Mr. Benitez was appointed by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to lead the newly established Outdoor Recreation Industry Office in 2015. In that role, he transformed the outdoor industry into a powerful force for economic development, conservation and stewardship, education and workforce training, and public health and wellness. Under his watch, the state’s outdoor economy ballooned from $28 billion to $65 billion.
Mr. Benitez spent a decade managing the well-established leadership development school, Outward Bound Professional in Colorado at the start of his career. He also served as the COO and Director of Operations for Adventure Consultants, a New Zealand-based global expedition firm with a long and storied
history of leading trips on Mount Everest that was featured both in the book Into Thin Air and in the movie Everest.
Mr. Benitez helped create the nonprofit Trekking for Kids, which focuses on service-based expeditions allowing participants to climb and trek while teaching them about local issues like housing and healthcare for disadvantaged youth around the world. He was also a founding partner for Warriors to Summits, a nonprofit focusing on serving veterans by connecting them with the outdoors.
He has also served as an adjunct professor in Ecuador and Chile for the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Benitez studied Political Science at the University of Missouri – Saint Louis
and holds an Executive MBA from the University of Denver with an emphasis certification on behavioral sciences and public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.