As an avid runner he grew up in Columbia, Maryland., Greg Curtis fell in love with the Patagonia brand. He browsed through the clothing company’s catalogs, admiring its products, articles, and photographs. Two decades later, Curtis not only landed a job at the iconic outdoor brand, but was also responsible for efforts to put the bulk of its profits back into the environment, executing the vision of Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard.
Chouinard, the rock climber who founded Patagonia in 1973, shocked the world in 2022 when he revealed plans to transfer ownership of the clothing company to a group of 501 organizations known as the Holdfast Collective. “Land is now our sole shareholder,” Chouinard, who laid out his plans to transfer 100 percent of Patagonia’s non-voting shares to Holdfast Collective and pay its annual dividend, said in his announcement.
“The idea is to turn Patagonia into a permanent mission,” Curtis, who is CEO of the Holdfast Collective, told the Observer. The offshore company is the same “dedicated and committed organization it has always been – but with that extra financial value created to spread it around the world for environmental causes and protection.”
Approximately 98 percent of Patagonia’s shares are non-voting shares, and are now in the hands of the Holdfast Group, with the remaining voting shares transferred to an entity known as Patagonia Purpose Trust. “We’ve really separated power from economic benefit,” said Curtis, 49, noting that Holdfast Group, which receives all of Patagonia’s annual profits that are not reinvested in the company, has no decision-making power over the size of its profits; While the Patagonia Purpose Trust is responsible for business decisions but does not receive financial benefits.
The Holdfast Group consists of five not-for-profit groups: the Holdfast Trust, the Chalten Trust, the Wilder Trust, the Tailwind Trust and the Sojourner Trust. The Holdfast Trust is the largest entity, receiving approximately 77 percent of Patagonia’s dividend funds and focusing on large-scale projects such as conservation acquisitions, dam removal, and multi-year programmatic work, while smaller trusts fund grassroots grants.
To date, the collectives have received $210 million in dividends from Patagonia and have distributed approximately $175 million of that capital. The bulk of its resources – between 60 and 70 percent – go to land conservation projects, Curtis said, noting that the Holdfast Group uses its funds gradually, making decisions every six to eight weeks, in order to ensure that all of its capital is not used at once and can respond to immediate needs.
In 2025, for example, it financed the acquisition of an 8,000-acre property in Georgia containing the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge that was threatened by the development of a titanium and zirconium mine. “This was something we were able to engage in quietly, in response to a direct threat to the extractive industry and development,” Curtis said. “We would like to be able to respond to these types of things.”
However, deploying all available capital by the end of the year remains one of Holdfast Collective’s three guiding requirements, along with stipulations to avoid building a large bureaucracy — Curtis is the only full-time employee at Holdfast Collective — and to stay away from duplicating the grassroots environmental giving in which Patagonia is already involved.
Curtis, who earned his law degree from the University of Connecticut, began his career at law firms in Rhode Island and Palo Alto before becoming in-house counsel at United Technologies. In 2014, he took on the position of Assistant General Counsel at Patagonia, and in 2021, he moved to the position of Deputy General Counsel. “They’ve been at the forefront of really interesting corporate governance issues,” the apparel company’s Curtis said, citing its forays into multi-stakeholder capitalism, B Corp certification and annual giving via the 1% to The Planet.
During Curtis’ time at Patagonia, he also received the “opportunity of a lifetime” to help manage the company through its ownership transition. Working closely with Chouinard, the founder’s family, and Patagonia’s board of directors, Curtis helped engineer its unique philanthropic structure and build trust with the company’s senior leaders. When the time came to choose someone to lead the Holdfast Group, he was tapped.
Beyond dealing with the unusual structure of Patagonia and the Holdfast group, Curtis’s legal background is still useful. “There is an inherent legal element to a lot of the projects we are involved in,” said Curtis, who cited the structuring of grant agreements and the international movement of funds as examples.
The latter, in particular, is key for Holdfast Collective, which deploys a significant portion of its capital around the world. She is particularly interested in giving back to countries where Patagonia has gobbled up resources or local economic benefits, Such as Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan, as well Regions in North America and Europe. “We look forward to redeploying and supporting the work in places where the company already mines,” Curtis said.
One of Curtis’ favorite projects to date occurred last year, when the Holdfast Group helped fund the preservation of a 325,000-acre wilderness valley in Chile’s Cochamo Valley. The area, located in Chilean Patagonia, which includes 1,000-metre-high granite walls and groves of trees and endangered species, was officially transferred to a Chilean non-profit organization in December after a long campaign over its ownership. “It’s not always going to be this way, but maybe once or twice a year — maybe every couple of years — we’ll find that really strong streak,” Curtis said.
For 2026, the CEO hopes to continue supporting land conservation initiatives and dam removal projects, as well as funding regulatory fights to defend against federal overreach around extractive projects and supporting politicians who can serve as climate leaders. “We certainly need some federal allies in Congress who can help defend the environmental regulatory framework and public lands,” Curtis said.
Amid declining federal support for climate partners, the need for support from players like the Holdfast Collective has accelerated, according to Curtis. “There is a sense of crisis,” the executive said, adding that there has been a recent increase in so-called “green silence” among organizations and companies that have decided to abandon their previous climate commitments.
