Walker Stapleton

Stapleton's family has been active in Colorado since the early 1900s.^[3][4] Walker was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, attending the private Brunswick School.^[5][6] He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, and holds a graduate degree in business economics from the London School of Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.^[7]

Stapleton's mother, Dorothy Walker Stapleton, is a first cousin once removed of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, making him a second cousin of former U.S. President George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.^[4] He has maintained close ties to the Bush family and credits George H. W. Bush for inspiring him to enter politics.^[8] His father is diplomat Craig Roberts Stapleton.^[9] His great-grandfather, Benjamin F. Stapleton, served as mayor of Denver from 1923 to 1931 and 1935 to 1947.^[3]

Stapleton began his private sector career in 1997 at Hambrecht & Quist as an investment banker.^[10] Two years later, he became Director of Business Development for Live365.^[11] He subsequently was CEO and CFO of various private and publicly traded companies, until assuming office as Colorado Treasurer in 2011.^[12]

In early 2018, Stapleton, then running for governor of Colorado, was accused by fellow candidate Steve Barlock of paying off the History Colorado Center to remove mention of the family's ties with the white supremacy movement and the beginnings of the Ku Klux Klan in America from their exhibitions.^[13][14]

Stapleton was a 2014 Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow.^[15] In January 2022 Governor Jared Polis appointed Stapleton to the state's Economic Development Commission.^[16]