Vertical was founded 1992 by Rodrigo Jordan along with a team of fellow Chilean Mountaineers who were the first Latin Americans to summit Mt. Everest. Once the team returned to Chile, they decided to use what they learned on the mountain to support different companies in the challenge of developing teams. After their struggle to become the first Chileans and Latin Americans to summit Mt. Everest, they understood that there is an important blend of teamwork, technical, and interpersonal skills needed to accomplish a goal. 

The first Vertical programs were workshops, conferences, and other activities, all aimed at enhancing the skills of individuals and team work, regardless of socio-economic status or position within the company. Vertical has since pioneered experiential learning in organizational development by running major expeditions all over the world, offering services in education, training and development to more than 200,000 people in Chile, Latin America, the U.S. and Europe.

Experiential learning is an inseparable combination of living an experience and then reflecting on that experience, in order to transfer the lessons learned to one’s life. The more students can practice this type of learning in life, the better they will be as leaders. Each individual has a scope of development beyond their technical skills and little by little this intuition gave way to a conviction, that we have strengthened over the past 20 years designing and implementing programs for education, training, and leadership expeditions to different organizations both in Chile and abroad.

Our Partners

In 2002, Vertical partnered with the University of Pennsylvania to help develop Wharton Leadership Ventures. The program continues to this day and more than 2,400 Wharton Business students have participated in Vertical Leadership Expeditions.

On the leadership expeditions, Vertical is responsible for the logistics, content and development of the experience. Programs can focus on instilling values through a combination of teamwork and community service activities, enhancing tolerance to uncertainty and adversity by trekking in rainy Patagonia to fine-tuning their communication skills on a glacier crossing in Antarctica.