Chief Change Officer
#233 From Rainy-Day Idea to $20M: Chris Schrader’s Race for Change – Part Two
Fri, 14 Mar 2025
Part Two.A rainy-day idea, a pair of walking shoes, and a determined teenager—what could go wrong? For Chris Schrader, it led to something extraordinary. A simple trek across England turned into a five-figure fundraiser and the start of a global movement. In Part One, the 24 Hour Race founder shares how a tribute to a friend sparked a worldwide fight against human trafficking, raising over $20 million across 25 cities. Turns out, big change starts with small steps.Key Highlights of Our Interview:From the Wilderness to the Workplace: Business Team Building 401“Business is a watered-down version of an expedition, and an expedition is a hyperbolic version of business. The success of both depends on understanding team dynamics—bridging the gap between the strongest and weakest players.”“Your performance isn’t defined by your best players; it’s defined by your weakest. In the expedition world, you have two choices—get rid of your weakest link or rein in your top performers.”Don’t Be the Adventure Tour Guide—Leadership Takes Tough Calls“You’re not an adventure tour guide. You’re there to achieve a specific goal, and sometimes that means making tough calls against your team’s individual interests to keep the whole expedition on track.”Nietzsche, Space Dreams, and Paying the Bills“Nietzsche teaches us to live life with vitality, to focus on what brings joy in the moment. But, let’s be honest—sometimes that joy includes paying the electricity bill for your sous vide obsession.”It’s Not All About Musk and Zuckerberg: Real Impact Starts Closer to Home“The hardest thing isn’t creating global impact like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg—it’s investing in the people around you and making a meaningful difference in their lives.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Chris Schrader______________________--Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.10 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.130,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today. --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.15 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>150,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Chris Schrader and what is the 24 Hour Race?
Today's guest is Chris Schrader, founder and executive chairman of 24 Hour Race, which is a global movement against human trafficking that has raised over 20 million US dollars in the last decade. I've known Chris for almost 10 years. Our first encounter was back in 2016 when I invited him to be a panelist at an event I hosted on education technology.
Chris is sharp, well-read, and definitely unconventional. He took a leave of absence from Harvard Spent an extended period of time away and eventually finished his studies in neuroscience while also building and growing tech businesses around the world. Along the way, he founded a charity based on his love for expeditions.
And it's safe to say he sees life and business leadership as a journey too. We have talked for about an hour, split into two parts. In the last episode, part one, we touched upon the genesis and evolution of 24-hour race. What started as a casual suggestion on a rainy day turned into a life-changing journey for a teenager. The walk across England raised five figures in U.S.
Chapter 2: How did a rainy-day idea evolve into a global movement?
dollars and sparked an eight-figure U.S. dollar global movement at the end. Today's episode, part two, will focus on Chris' approach to leadership and team building, drawing parallels between leading an expedition and managing a business team. Here, we'll highlight how lessons learned from life or death situations in the wilderness translate into effective leadership strategies
in the corporate world. Chris also offers his genuine advice for young, ambitious talents on balancing life goals, family expectations, and career direction. Let's get started. As you walk us through this journey, from the humble beginnings all the way to raising 20 million US dollars over the years, it almost sounds like magic, but I know it's not magic.
There must have been plenty of challenges along the way, not just in the beginning when teachers were dismissive of your idea, but throughout the whole process. Could you tell us more about some of the difficulties or obstacles that you and your team faced? And how did you eventually figure things out? Maybe you can share some specific examples?
Chapter 3: What challenges did the 24 Hour Race face on its journey?
yeah that's a great question look we've honestly had hundreds of thousands of challenges and they can really span from existential through to incidental so existential for example was just identifying our purpose what are we we're not quite a grassroots organization we put these races together we raised quite a bit of Are we in a grassroots NGO? Are we an events provider?
Are we an anti-slavery charity? Just figuring that out in the early days was really tough. We've had other stuff since. For example, we had one event that was literally received a threat from ISIS at the peak of the ISIS terror wave in the 2010s. And we had to make a spot decision whether to cancel our event or to continue it.
So you have these sort of momentary hurdles and you have the existential ones. The way I always think about it is like climbing a mountain. When you climb a mountain, and let's say it's a totally novel new mountain that hasn't really been climbed before, you identify an approach from where the perspective that you have, you'll of course miss things.
And then you attempt to summit or wherever you attempt an approach. And often there are obstacles and maybe you get about halfway and then there's an ice field and... It's insurpassable, and so you turn around and you reevaluate your approach. But fundamentally, the goal is the same, which is to summit that mountain.
And sometimes you get really close, and you're so close that it's very tempting to carry on. But again, there's some kind of threat, a big crevasse or whatever, that just isn't worth the risk. And of course, if you're very lucky and if you're very good at it, you do summit the mountain.
But as any mountaineer will tell you, when you get to the top of a peak, what's the first thing you see another peak that you want to find? There's this sort of aspect to a charity where I would describe, for example, an ISIS threat to a group of students in a particular city trying to fight slavery.
as a similar situation to a crevasse on that mountain analogy versus what is the actual mountain we're climbing is more existential and more akin to what is the 24-hour race what's its role in the world if that makes sense i really like the analogy used is actually quite philosophical it reminds me of a chinese saying
which is, however high the mountain is, there's always another one higher. That idea of always seeing a higher peak resonates with what you are saying. This philosophy seems not apply only to how you've built this charity, but also to your approach in many of the business ventures you've been involved in.
Yeah, let me expand a little bit on that analogy by going into the realm of the absurd. So in 2011, I took a gap year after graduating high school. And while all my friends were heading on trips to Phuket and various destinations in Asia. I got on a train and then a plane and arrived in the capital city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, where I met a team of 14 in total seasoned explorers.
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Chapter 4: How does Chris Schrader approach leadership and team building?
And then we went all the way out to the west of Mongolia and we began to attempt to walk across the Gobi desert. And I was young. I think I just hadn't turned 18 yet. I was 17. And as we began this journey, the Gobi desert itself, sometimes for whatever reason back then, the GPS signal wouldn't work. Now navigation was a little bit
more simple in the early days because you basically had a series of mountains to your north and you had a series of mountains to your south. The sun rose and you just followed the sun and you kept the mountains between, you'd more or less be on track.
But as that mountain range, the Altai mountains subsided into the flatness of the Gobi, you know, we struggle with navigation to the point where we'd have to double check where we thought we were with stars. And what I think is interesting about cellular navigation, this millennia-long way of getting around the world, is you follow stars, but you never really expect to set foot on them.
So you can follow the north star, which is the one everyone talks about, or you can navigate by it, and it can guide you to incredible destinations. It can get you to exactly where you want to be at various points of your journey. But by following this thing, you're not going to ever reach it. And I think in some way, good goals are like that.
Good goals guide your day-to-day decision-making, whether they're immediate, random threats to whatever it is you're building or doing in your personal life or in your business life, or totally big decisions to make. You can always refer to your so-called North Star or whatever star it is that you navigate by. I think about that analogy a lot. What's a goal worth pursuing?
were you to spend your whole life pursuing it and you were to never reach it and you're in your old frail years you could still say to yourself that was a hell of a shot and it was totally worth it You know, what are goals that are so important that failure is expected and not a disappointment because the goal itself is just too important for that.
And that just, that was a thought process I had back on the Adobe expedition some time ago.
So far, our discussion has been focused a lot on your charity work. but I also know you've been involved in a wide range of businesses over the years. Rather than focusing on one industry or one firm, let's talk more broadly about your business endeavors. You've had your hands in so many different ventures across different cultures. Tell us a bit about your overall approach
You've shared your philosophy earlier, but how have you integrated that into the for-profit business world? How do you use it to drive business growth, build strong teams, and achieve financial goals for the businesses you've been part of?
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Chapter 5: What are Chris Schrader's views on business and expeditions?
And in that time, I transitioned from being a charity founder to a software founder. And I have a lot of thoughts about the evolution of software since I started working in the industry in 2014 till today. As a matter of fact, my background, I started at Harvard studying a very generically named field, East Asian Studies.
mainly focused on China, and in particular, Ming Dynasty Chinese history onwards. And I transitioned to the field of computational neuroscience, which is eventually where I got my degree. So I was always attracted to the field of technology. And anyone who was alive in 2013 or 2014 could see it was really early days for adopting and deploying technology into various industries.
So I made that transition. That being said, everything, every success I've had, and for that matter, every failure I've had while working in the full profit technology and software sector, I can basically trace to an analogy from an expedition that I've partaken on. So
Talking about, for example, team building, there's an expression that I first heard when I was rowing in high school, at boarding school, which was the first boat is only as fast as the second boat. And I think what was meant, I was on the second boat, by the way, I wasn't on the first.
I think what was meant by this is that you define, your performance is not defined by your best players, it's defined by your weakest players. And in business, this can be a little bit of a trope because our attitude often in the business world is to give people chances and to make sure they perform. But the expedition world, there are no such, there's no such forgiveness.
So I can think of one expedition that I was on, for example. where the expedition leader, who wasn't me, was himself an accomplished explorer, but was not very good at understanding that distinction between your top players and your, I wouldn't say bottom players, but your weaker links.
As an expedition leader, you need to make sure that your top players are humbled and understand that they're only as strongest as their weakest player. And so as an expedition leader, you have really two choices. You can either get rid of your weakest link or you can rein in your top performers. That's really what happens. And by the way,
To be quite honest, by the time that an expedition actually takes place, it's really too late to be making these decisions. They should be made well before you do the expedition itself. And this particular person didn't really understand this concept very well.
And the result was that small discrepancies in the abilities between team members were not managed properly, led to huge discrepancies in morale and expedition success. And on this particular expedition, I think over 70% of the participants ended up dropping out. And they dropped out for health reasons. There were some very close calls. And when I say close call, I mean near death, okay?
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Chapter 6: How does Chris Schrader integrate his philosophy into business ventures?
boiler environment and translate that to work i think more recently yeah so in summary when i think about the successes i've had all failures in the world of software it basically comes down to the team
And the realization that, yes, I'm supposed to be really good at what I do, whatever it is that I do in that particular company, but I'm never supposed to be better than any individual who works with me. And as an expedition leader or as a business leader, I'm effectively the secretary for the team.
My job is to check in on everyone, make sure that they're aligned and get rid of any obstacles in their way so that they can do the best jobs possible. which I think is a very different attitude to the sort of gung-ho, lead from the front attitude. Don't get me wrong. I think that's important.
I think leaders demonstrating their commitment to a particular cause, to a business venture, to an expedition, whatever it is, through self-sacrifice, that's key there. It's not necessarily competitive. Although I think competition has a lot of good, a lot of benefits for both business and expeditions, at least in the lead up to them.
It's about being a servant for a team that where each team member in their respective domains is a much better performer than you are and enabling them by guiding the direction of the whole.
You are a servant leader. You are the type who wants to make others shine. If you can help your team members grow to become better people, better leaders, better managers, then you are the silent force behind their success.
Look, I have ego and I failed more than I've succeeded. So I think it's a goal. I don't know if I'm a good leader, but I'm trying to be and introspective about it. I don't think the factor of being a leader is being a servant. There are many cases where you as a leader have to build a kind of myth around yourself. You have to be something that people aspire to be toward or to be like.
You have to demonstrate qualities, the best qualities that maybe they see in themselves. You have to exemplify that. But those qualities don't necessarily mean obviously beating everyone else at their own game. Those qualities could be patience, wisdom, experience, humility, strength, ruthlessness. This is an underrated one, I think.
Every one of your team members trusts you not to make the best decisions for each of them individually, but to make the best decision for the expedition as a whole, right? This is a typical lesson you learn as an expedition leader. You're not there to make everybody individually happy. You're not an adventure tour guide, let alone just a regular tour guide.
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