Kim Coupounas
Kim Coupounas is co-founder and Chief Environmental Officer of GoLite, an international outdoor clothing and equipment company based in Boulder, Colorado. She served as GoLite’s Chief Executive Officer until early 2008 when she chose to focus on GoLite’s path to sustainability. Her current work includes a Scope 1, 2, and 3 environmental baseline analysis and a multi-year footprint mitigation strategy.
Kim is recent past Chairman of the Board of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), the trade association that represents the $289 Billion active outdoor recreation industry, where she served as a board member from 2000 to 2008. She continues to serve as a member of the board of directors of the Outdoor Industry Association Political Action Committee. During her term as Chairman of OIA, the association established the first environmental working group that is creating industry-wide environmental and sustainability standards. During her tenure, OIA also launched the OIA Fair Labor Tool Kit that provides industry manufacturers the tools to help them ensure fair working conditions in the factories that produce their products. During her time as Chair, OIA also led efforts on passing numerous recreation, trade, and conservation bills in Congress important to the outdoor industry, including aiding the Secretary of the Interior in the launch of the National Park Centennial Challenge to improve funding of America’s National Parks for their 100th anniversary in 2016.
Prior to GoLite, Kim served as a Principal at The Parthenon Group, a strategic consulting and investment firm in Boston, as a Wall St. investment banker at Goldman, Sachs & Co., as C.O.O. of The Shackleton School in Boston, Massachusetts, an experiential, expedition-based high school, and as C.O.O. of Up with People. Kim has also worked as policy advisor to numerous national political campaigns and served as a research associate at The Edison Project in Washington, D.C.
Kim is an accomplished public speaker on sustainability, leadership, and entrepreneurship. She has served on numerous boards, including Outward Bound, Leaders Challenge, Peak Arts, The Boulder Philharmonic, The Wish List, and others and currently serves on the Princeton Women in Leadership, the Outdoor Industry Concentration Advisory Board and Academic Committee of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, the Executive Committee of the Boulder Active Living Business Council, and as a member of the Boulder Think Tank Sustainability Council.
She and her company have been the recipient of numerous professional awards, including the 2007 Esprit Award for Entrepreneurship, the 2006 Outdoor Industry Pioneering Woman Award, the 2003 Athena Award for Leadership, SportsEdge Magazine’s 25 Leaders to Watch (2002), Denver Business Journal’s 2002 Outstanding Woman in Business, Denver Business Journal’s 2002 Family Business Award, Boulder County Business Report’s 2001 and 2003 IQ Award for Innovation, numerous Editor’s Choice awards for GoLite products, and the Outdoor Writer’s Guild’s 2002 Crystal Bowl Award for Innovation.
She and her company have also appeared in thousands of television, online, and print media stories, including on The Today Show, CNN, The Early Show, Fox News, MTV, the Weather Channel, OLN, CBS News, and NBC News, and in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, Time, USA Today, Inc., Los Angeles Times, Popular Science, Men’s Journal, Fortune, Christian Science Monitor, Fortune Small Business, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Backpacker, Runner’s World, Trail Runner, Health, National Geographic, Adventure, Walking, Men’s Fitness, Shape, Spirit, and many, many others.
Kim earned an A.B. Cum Laude in Philosophy from Princeton University, an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and an M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She conducted graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford University as a Rotary Foundation Graduate Scholar. She is an avid trail runner, backpacker, mountaineer, and singer. She is also the former British national karate champion. Kim and her husband and business partner, “Coup,” have climbed many of the world’s most beautiful mountains including the highest mountain or molehill in each of the fifty United States. To reach her, call (303)884-8658 or email kim@golite.com.
About GoLite
Founded in 1998, GoLite® is the premier global manufacturer of lightweight, innovative and sustainable apparel and equipment designed specifically for outdoor athletes. GoLite is dedicated to transforming the outdoor athlete’s trail experience by designing and developing simple, beautiful high performance gear that lets people experience nature more with less. Environmental stewardship and social responsibility have been fundamental to GoLite’s mission and core values since its founding. GoLite is striving to be a 100% “carbon neutral,” zero waste company that uses a majority of environmentally preferred materials and zero restricted substances in its products by 2010. GoLite is also committed to ensuring that its products are produced in workplaces that are fair, safe, and non-discriminatory: GoLite abides by Timberland fair labor Code of Conduct. GoLite operates in 23 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.golite.com or call 888-5-GOLITE.
