Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Index Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

Meet the Man Who Turns Patagonia Profits Into Global Climate Action Engine

Curtis is steering Patagonia’s unconventional ownership structure into a steady pipeline of funding for conservation, policy fights and urgent environmental needs.

As an avid runner growing up in Columbia, Md., Greg Curtis fell in love with the brand Patagonia. He’d flip through the apparel company’s catalogs, admiring its products, articles and photographs. A couple of decades later, Curtis has not only secured a job at the famed outdoor brand, but is also in charge of an effort to funnel the bulk of its profits back into the environment, carrying out the vision of Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard.

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

Chouinard, the rock climber who founded Patagonia in 1973, shocked the world in 2022 when he unveiled plans to transfer ownership of the apparel company to a group of 501 c(4) organizations known as the Holdfast Collective. “Earth is now our only shareholder,” said Chouinard in his announcement, which laid out his plans to transfer 100 percent of Patagonia’s non-voting stock to the Holdfast Collective and pay it annual dividends.

“The idea is to convert Patagonia into a perpetual mission,” Curtis, who serves as executive director of the Holdfast Collective, told Observer. The outdoor company is the same “dedicated, committed organization that it’s always been—but with that excess financial value that’s generated to be deployed around the world........

© Observer