BeNeXT Launch — SXSW × La Peña Art Gallery
When BeNeXT Global launched at SXSW, Pepsi stood with us. The launch took the form of a three-day institutional takeover of La Peña Art Gallery in downtown Austin — a pop-up gallery, music shows, and the public unveiling of BeNeXT's hemispheric leadership thesis to more than 2,800 participants across the SXSW week. Pepsi's sponsorship — secured through Rafael Hernandez and Pepsi's head of event sponsorship — anchored the production alongside Tito's Handmade Vodka and Jarritos.
Three full days of programming inside La Peña: art exhibits, live music, drinks, and the structured informational sessions that introduced BeNeXT Global to a public audience for the first time. Project authors, civic leaders, students, and SXSW attendees passed through a single Austin venue that, for those three days, became the institutional doorway of a new hemispheric institution.
The public debut of BeNeXT Global as an institution. A sponsorship that gave the launch the production scale and audience reach SXSW makes possible — and a continuing Pepsi relationship that has supported BeNeXT in less visible ways in the years since. The institutional thanks remains: Pepsi was there when it mattered most.
