We've been lucky a lot more than we've been right
Adam Schwab is the co-founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes, one of the world’s most loved travel brands. From a small Melbourne laneway office in 2010, Adam helped grow the business into a global powerhouse, turning over more than $1 billion annually, with 600 team members across four continents. Luxury Escapes has been recognised as Australia’s fastest-growing company by BRW and the Australian Financial Review, and ranked #1 in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50.
A former lawyer with Freehills, Adam launched his first business with just $50,000 in capital, scaling it to over $2 million in annual revenue within two years. He later co-founded MyTable, one of Australia’s first online food delivery businesses, which was acquired by Menulog before its $855 million sale to JustEat.
Adam is a respected business commentator and financial journalist, contributing to SmartCompany and the AFR, and appearing on major networks including Channel Seven, Sky Business and 3AW. He is the host of top-rating podcasts The Contrarians and From Zero, and author of the Amazon bestseller Pigs at the Trough: Lessons from Australia’s Decade of Corporate Greed.
Named Young CEO of the Year in 2015 and a BRW Young Rich Lister since 2014, Adam brings unparalleled insights into entrepreneurship, scaling businesses and navigating disruption.
Talking Points
How Luxury Escapes Bootstrapped to $500m
Key Takeaways:How Luxury Escapes Bootstrapped to $500m
- How Luxury Escapes grew to more than $500m without raising a cent of external capital
- ‘Founder Mode’ – how to scale a global team
- How to create a culture of innovation and risk-taking
- Think like the customer – how to build a business with lots of customer love and no capital
What I learned from Stepping Away from the Business
Key Takeaways:What I learned from Stepping Away from the Business
- Adam went from junior lawyer to CEO – the learning curve to becoming a leader of no one to 600 people
- After ten years, Adam stepped away from the business from eighteen months, before returning during Covid – since then, the business has tripled in size
- Scaling as a leader – what do growth leaders need to understand about themselves?
Building Competitive Advantage in a Brutal Global Market
Key Takeaways:Building Competitive Advantage in a Brutal Global Market
- The importance of investing deeply in customer service to build a sustainable brand
- How to use technology to create a cornered resource
- Building brand as a sustained competitive advantage
- Zig when everyone is zagging – how doing the opposite made Luxury Escapes one of the world’s best marketers
