Welcoming Darrell Wade to Purposely Podcast.
Darrell co-founded Intrepid Travel, one of the largestadventure travel companies in the world and a certified B Corp, built on the idea that travel should give something back to the places it touches. He is also Chair of Philanthropy Australia, the peak body working to build a strongerculture of giving across the country.
The idea for Intrepid came together in 1988, on a nine monthoverland trip across Africa in a converted truck with a group of friends, including his now wife Anna and university mate Geoff “Manch” Manchester. Back in Australia, a good job with a strong salary was on offer. Darrell was ready to take it and put the travel company idea aside, until Anna told him he would be a pain in the ass unless he started the business. He did, expecting a 90 percent chance of failure.
The company was bootstrapped on 20,000 dollars between the two founders, and the first five years were lean. Darrell talks candidly about the slow build, the early days running the entire business from a single desk while Manch led trips in Thailand, and the gradual shift from a lifestyle choice into a genuine company with a plan.
A significant turning point came in 2011, when Intrepid solda 60 percent stake to Tui Group. Darrell describes the decision and the four years that followed as oil and water. The cultures were fundamentally incompatible, growth stalled, and in 2015 the founders unwound the deal. Within a month of separating, the business was growing again. He is direct about whathe took from it: financial logic is not enough if the culture does not hold together.
Darrell also talks about the moment his thinking on climatechanged. Reading Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers on a family safari in Botswana, not long after Intrepid had won an award for responsible tourism, he realised the company was not the environmental good guy he thought it was. Hedescribes it plainly: they were part of the problem. That reckoning shaped Intrepid's climate work from there on, including taking the entire office and a thousand travellers to see An Inconvenient Truth.
The conversation covers the depth of the COVID crash too.Intrepid went from operating in 120 countries to zero almost overnight, and the company had to make significant redundancies to survive. Darrell shares a moment from that day that has stayed with him: a staff member he had just maderedundant stopped him in the office and asked if he was okay.
The episode closes on giving. Darrell sets out why Intrepidbuilt structured philanthropy into the business through The Intrepid Foundation, the case for corporate giving as something that benefits customers, staff and the business itself rather than a purely altruistic add-on, and his view on doing philanthropy thoughtfully rather than assuming good intentions are enough. He also speaks to his role as Chair of Philanthropy Australia, and what it means to govern a peak body trying to build a stronger, broader culture of giving across the country rather than leaving it concentrated among high net worth donors.
This episode of Purposely is brought to you by Benevityand Trust Investments.
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