This expert is no longer a staff member at The Heritage Foundation.
In his role as Group Vice President of Communications, Wesley Denton oversaw a team of communications professionals that promote Heritage’s conservative policy ideas and team of experts on on multiple media platforms in Washington and around the country.
Denton previously served as a senior policy advisor to Heritage President Jim DeMint. He also worked on the launch of the American Perceptions Initiative, a research project devoted to understanding how Americans view conservative policies and ways to better communicate their benefits to the individual.
During more than a decade of service on Capitol Hill, he served as communications director in DeMint’s U.S. Senate office from January 2005 until the South Carolina Republican resigned in January 2013 to become president-elect of Heritage before assuming the presidency three months later.
Denton first began his work in Congress in 2001 as a press assistant to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee and in 2002 became communications director in the office of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.).
His current post actually marks a return to Heritage. In the spring of 2001, Denton interned for Edwin Meese III, the former U.S. attorney general, who at the time was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Denton was born in Evansville, In., and grew up in Beaufort, S.C. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clemson University.
He and his wife, Kari, have four children and reside in Virginia.