Speaker Bio
Andrew Denton has been working in Outdoor Recreation since 1984, starting in outdoor education then moving to a series of senior management and business ownership roles with brands such as Rohan, Mountain Equipment, Sprayway, Ronhill and many more.
He is best known as the founder and co-owner of the modern Mountain Equipment brand where he worked for 17 years.
Today he is CEO of the Outdoor Industries Association the non-profit body that represents the UK Outdoor Recreation sector to government and across the world. He is Secretary General of the European Outdoor Group Coalition ‘Its Great Out There’ – based in Brussels to increase Outdoor activity in Europe. He is the Chair of the Sheffield Outdoor City project, sits on The Wild Network council, the OutDoor by ISPO Advisory Board and is the Outdoor Representative on the UK- Active Membership Council.
In 2015 Andrew was appointed by the Sports Minister to co-chair a committee to contribute a national outdoor recreation strategy to the government’s sport strategy paper Sporting Future. He sits on steering groups & committees, both government and NGO on outdoor recreation, working with DCMS, PHE, Sport England and others.
Through the 2020 Pandemic Andrew curated a daily newsletter for the outdoor industry, and co-wrote guides to the safe reopening of campsites, caravan Sites, hostels, climbing walls, vertical adventure parks, outdoor stores and more.
As well as the non-profit sector Andrew works as an independent commercial business consultant and co-owns several climbing walls.
He is an accomplished ski mountaineer, mountain biker and GB Ironman triathlete, with first ascents in Patagonia, the Arctic & Antarctica and a broad background of outdoor adventures across the world.
