Joe De Sena

Joe De Sena Profile

Fitness legend, Joe De Sena is the founder and CEO of Spartan Race, the biggest brand in obstacle racing. Every year Spartan hosts over 200 competitions worldwide, bringing in approximately 1 million participants per year.

Spartan embodies endurance, passion, and commitment – the same principles it took to make it a thriving business. At the time of Spartan’s founding, De Sena was already a veteran entrepreneur having made money on Wall Street, in construction, and even in pool-cleaning with a neighborhood business he started as a teenager. However, his vision of races that saw participants climbing under barbed wire, trudging through mud, and sprinting over the occasional fire pit, did not automatically translate to a profitable model. In the early years De Sena would sometimes invest extensive money and time into an event, only to have 1 participant show up. Several times he was near the brink of bankruptcy, but his passion to get people to be healthier and more resilient, kept him going, and several years, Spartan began to see exponential growth through multiple events and a growing buzz on the Internet. Today it is a multi-million dollar business.

Recently, De Sena has launched the SpartanX Leadership Forum, which helps trains business leaders and teams to better manage unforeseen obstacles and challenges. De Sena is the co-author of the best-seller Spartan Up: A Take-No-Prisoners Guide to Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Peak Performance in Life, author of Spartan Fit!: 30 Days. Transform Your Mind. Transform Your Body. Commit to Grit. No Gym Required, and most recently, The Spartan Way: Eat Better. Train Better. Think Better. Be Better.

• View Extended/Alternate Bio

  Joe De Sena – Founder and CEO of Spartan, the world’s largest obstacle race and endurance brand – has demonstrated his entrepreneurial drive since his pre-teens. After building a multimillion-dollar pool and construction business in college, and creating a Wall Street trading firm, De Sena set his sights on ripping 100 million people off their couches by creating the Spartan lifestyle.

  Following a successful career on Wall Street, De Sena moved his family to Pittsfield, Vermont to operate an organic farm, a bed and breakfast, and a general store for hikers. It was here his passion grew for ultramarathons, adventure races, and endurance events, and thus the idea for Spartan was born.

  With more than one million annual global participants at more than 200 events across more than 30 countries, Spartan offers heats for all fitness levels and ages, from beginner to elite and Kids as young as four-years-old. The brand has transformed more than five million lives since it was founded in 2010.

  De Sena is also the New York Times Best Selling Author of “Spartan Up” and “Spartan Fit,” and recently released his third book, “The Spartan Way.” As a popular key note speaker, De Sena has parlayed the teachings of his Spartan Principals into the SpartanX Leadership Forum, a series of events in which participants collaborate to solve challenges alongside business leaders while learning to overcome mental and physical obstacles.

  In addition to race events, the Spartan lifestyle that De Sena built encompasses all the tools one needs to transform their lives including partnerships with fitness brands such as Life Time, 24Hour Fitness and the DailyBurn; complementary training, nutrition plans and content; television series on NBC and Facebook; forthcoming documentaries about the brand, sport and health; and an extensive line of apparel and licensed fitness gear and equipment.

  Throughout his lifetime, Joe has competed in any extreme sports adventure he could find, testing his mental and physical endurance against nature. Joe turned an interest in endurance racing into a passion. His racing resume is the stuff of legend – over 50 ultra-events overall and 14 Ironman events in one year alone.