A writer, editor and filmmaker living in Santa Monica, California, Laurie Benenson was the founder and editor-in-chief of Movieline Magazine and was a Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times. Among the movies she has produced or executive-produced are Dirt! The Movie; The Hadza, Last of the First; Lost City of the Monkey God; Kiss the Ground; Common Ground; Fantastic Fungi; and the upcoming Diamond Rivers Reborn. Chairman of the Board of the Amazon Conservation Team, Laurie also serves on the boards of The Broad Stage and the Violence Policy Center.

Laurie joined the Board of TreePeople at the request of founder Andy Lipkis, whom she met when she did a newspaper profile of him in the ‘70s. The equating of a city’s tree canopy with the health of the environment is a metric that resonated strongly with her, and the organization’s subsequent initiatives continue to inspire her. She was the recipient of TreePeople’s Evergreen Award in 2014, and is grateful to have a bench on the TP campus commemorating that honor.