Village Gamer

After being fired from McDonald’s as a teenager, Bruce Poon Tip decided that, to succeed in life, he would need to be self-employed. So, in 1990 he maxed-out his credit cards and started G Adventures, which he has since nurtured into the largest adventure travel company in the world, operating in more than 100 countries on all seven continents and serving more than 100,000 customers every year. In hi new book, LoopTail: How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Busines, Bruce recounts how entrepreneurship became his own adventure and gave him the opportunity to reimagine how business is done so it would provide the same sense of fulfillment as a backpack hike through the Himalayas.

LoopTail: How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Business
By Bruce Poon Tip with a Foreword by the Dalai Lama
Published by: Business Plus Publishing
Publication date: September 17, 2013 – available at Chapter’s and Amazon
Price: $27.00; 304 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1455574094

To achieve this, G Adventures does not have a CEO or HR department. Instead Poon Tip empowers his 1,500 employees to make instantaneous decisions to help clients on the spot. In lieu of Human Resources, G Adventures employs a Talent Agency and company Culture Club. He even offers any employee $5,000 if he or she can actually hurt his feelings with less than positive feedback about the company and how it’s being run. So far, nobody has claimed the prize. Bruce built his own philosophy on “the looptail” – a three-pronged full-circle approach that can guide any business to transcend their product and focus on passion and purpose in order to inspire freedom, happiness and community. It’s so named because everything you put into it, you get back in spades, Bruce contends, in the form of profitability, growth, and employee loyalty.

“In the last three years, I’ve made more money while focusing less on profit than ever before,”said Poon Tip recently.

Thanks to Poon Tip’s vision, G Adventures has flourished and maintained its give-back approach, and provides a model for how any company can become a true social enterprise that inspires and elevates its customers and employees to a higher purpose. Like an adventure travel story, LOOPTAIL will open up entrepreneurial minds to new experiences and possibilities that can reimagine and transform any business.

G Adventures is a most unique business success story that combines good karma with solid profits. The company has grown 30% each year since its founding, and has consistently been rated one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies. Accolades include a 15-time National Geographic Travel Award winner, plus awards from Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Ernst & Young, and many more. Bruce Poon Tip runs his company with the belief that customer-facing employees are a company’s most important people, he gave up the CEO title to elevate his Chief Experience Officers (known as “Tour Guides” or “Customer Service Reps” at other travel companies). Over the years, G Adventures has won numerous awards and distinctions for its singular vision, management approach, and company culture.

A global business leader, Bruce believes in the importance of good karma, happiness, freedom and using change as a catalyst for innovation. Sharing his philosophy is something that Bruce does on a regular basis. In addition to addressing the United Nations, he has presented at the headquarters of Apple and Google, and has keynoted TED events, UNESCO and World Bank, and has addressed leading entrepreneurial, business, brand and travel conferences.

A leader in sustainability and social entrepreneurship, Bruce was also inducted into the Social Venture Network Hall of Fame, alongside such entrepreneurs as Richard Branson (Virgin Airlines), Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream). He also was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, recognizing significant contributions to society. Born in Trinidad to a Chinese father and a Chinese-Venezuelan Spanish mother, Bruce grew up in Calgary and now lives in Toronto.