Bruce Poon Tip

In 1990, Bruce Poon Tip founded G Adventures in order to deliver incredible experiences to travelers who craved adventures beyond all-inclusive resorts. When no bank was willing to provide a loan, he started the company with two credit cards. Since then, G Adventures has grown to become a world leader in adventure travel, employing 1,500 people worldwide, offering more than 15,000 small group experiences, safaris and expeditions on all seven continents, in over 100 countries, serving more than 100,000 travelers a year.

A global leader in sustainability and social entrepreneurship, Poon Tip has spoken multiple times at the request of the United Nations and World Bank, has presented at the headquarters of Apple and Google, and delivered keynote speeches at TED events and leading entrepreneurship conferences around the world.

Poon Tip’s first book, Looptail, How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Business (September, 2013) is a stunning story of why community, culture, and karma matter in business, and how one man’s desire to do the right thing and generate profits can be blended into a win-win for all involved.

It shares the extraordinary story of his personal adventure, starting with his first-person account of how he honed his entrepreneurial instincts to start and develop G Adventures. Along the way, Poon Tip reveals his unusual management secrets that not only keep his employees fully engaged and energized but also keeps his customers extremely happy.

It hasn’t always been easy to try to balance Poon Tip’s desire for a socially responsible company along with the desire to generate profits. But thanks to Poon Tip’s vision, G Adventures has flourished and maintained its give-back approach. G Adventures is at the vanguard of what modern-day companies aspire to be, a true social enterprise that inspires and elevates its customers and employees to a higher purpose.

Under Poon Tip’s leadership, G Adventures has been named by National Geographic Adventures as the best ‘Do It All Outfitter’ on Earth and is a six-time recipient of the Top 10 Employers for Young People, a lifetime platinum recipient of the 50 Best Managed Companies and for ten consecutive years was named as one of Canada’s fastest growing companies by Profit magazine. G Adventures has received multiple Best Workplace Awards, as a result of extensive internal employee surveys conducted by the Great Place to Work Institute.

In addition to receiving an award as one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40, Poon Tip has also won Canada's Entrepreneur of the Year twice and has been honored as one of Canada's 100 Leaders of Tomorrow. In Profit magazine, he was featured as one of the Top 10 Entrepreneurs in Canada of the last 25 years. In 2012, he was inducted into the Social Venture Network Hall of Fame, joining celebrated entrepreneurs including Richard Branson (Virgin), Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream) and was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, recognizing significant contributions to society.

Poon Tip was born in Trinidad, resides in Canada and travels the world on a regular basis.