#231 From Rainy-Day Idea to $20M: Chris Schrader’s Race for Change – Part One

March 14, 202500:26:55

Some ideas fizzle out with the rain. Others, like Chris Schrader’s, spark global movements. What started as a simple walk across England in honor of a friend turned into the 24 Hour Race, a worldwide effort to combat human trafficking. With over $20 million raised across 25 cities, Chris proves that the best way to create change is to start moving—literally. Part One dives into the origins of his journey.

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Transcript21 lines

[00:13]
A
Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change. Progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. 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 US$20 million 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'll be talking for about an hour split into two parts. In this episode, part one, we'll dive into 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 teenager the world across England raised five figures in US dollar and sparked an eight figure US dollar global movement. Tomorrow'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, this episode highlights how lessons learned from life or death situations in the wilderness translate into effect effective leadership strategies in the corporate world. Chris also offers his heartfelt advice for young ambitious talents on balancing life goals, family expectations and career direction. Welcome Chris. Welcome to my show.
[04:05]
B
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[04:08]
A
Chris, do you remember that I invited you to an in person event hosted by me back in 2016? And I can't believe that after so many years I got the second chance of inviting you back now in a virtual format.
[04:32]
B
Thank you, Vince. They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. But in this case I think we can both agree that's a good thing. And I'm very excited to be chatting with you again for a second time with a decade that doesn't really feel like it should have been a decade later.
[04:49]
A
Chris, you and I are born and raised in Hong Kong, but I know you have a very interesting multicultural background. Tell us more about that.
[05:03]
B
Sure. So I'm a third generation Hong Konger. My grandparents moved here in 1960. My grandmother's family had been in Indonesia as Dutch colonists for something like 300 years. Her father and her uncles were all in government in the last colonial government of Indonesia. And of course, after World War II, they moved back to the Netherlands. And my grandmother was half Indonesian, and she never quite felt like she fit in. So when she met my grandfather and he proposed, she agreed on the condition that they would find their way back to Asia. And sure enough, a few years later, they moved to Hong Kong and got married in Hong Kong just a few days after moving in. And less than a few years later, less than a year later, my mother was born here, and I was actually a similar product. So my mother, who grew up in Hong Kong and went to school here, went to the Netherlands, found herself a hub, and basically said, if you want to marry me, you got to find your way back to Hong Kong. And that was my father, who was studying medicine at the time. For him to get qualified as a doctor, he had to go spend a year of training in London. And I happened there. The Catholic accident, I think, is the way to put it. But within a few months of my birth, we were all back in Hong Kong, and the rest of my siblings, I'm one of four, were all born in Hong Kong. So I grew up really at the tail end of Hong Kong's colonial era, and I had, for all intents and purposes, a really happy childhood and upbringing. I got to the age of about 13 or 14, and then I went to school in the UK. I went to a small boarding school with a military background.
[06:56]
A
Up until this point, you had what seemed like an uneventful childhood, but then something happened while you were attending boarding school in Britain that planted the seed for what would later become the 24 hour race. Can you dive into that? Could you share more about what happened.
[07:24]
B
In detail while there? One of the. The more defining events in my life happened, and that was the passing away of a childhood friend of mine who had a rare congenital illness at the age of 14. I didn't have money, I didn't have resources. I didn't have any talents to contribute to his legacy. But I figured, what's something I could do that would encourage people with resources, with money to. To maybe join that fight? And so, on a typically cold, rainy English day, me and a few friends were sitting together talking about, of course, our summer plans. And as a joke and kind of in a serious way, I suggested, why don't we walk across England? And I remember all of my friends laughing lightheartedly, except for one who looked at me dead straight and said, let's do it. And sure enough, through the support of parents, teachers, and friends, six Months later, myself and my friend found ourselves walking across England, albeit the short way, that is the length way, rather than up to Scotland. So we started at Land's End in the southwestern most point of the UK and walked back to our school just outside of Reading Post London. And in the process of that, we raised something like 200,000 Hong Kong dollars, which was more than I could have possibly imagined. Perhaps more importantly, we raised a ton of awareness about the plight of people suffering from illnesses that are so rare, they basically don't get any attention from the pharmaceutical industry. And this began my journey of protest, a type of protest that is pushing yourself physically and mentally for causes that you deeply care about. I ended up getting a scholarship to come back to Hong Kong and study at United World College. And me and my friend, we wanted to do something, a kind of 2.0 of our first expedition. And so where I was on his home turf in the UK for the first round, the idea was he could fly over to Hong Kong and we do our 2.0 there. The problem with doing an expedition in Hong Kong is that a walk across Hong Kong island is something you just do with your girlfriend on any day of the week as a recreational kind of easy afternoon. So we needed to come up with something a little bit more challenging. Lipo Chun the school is in Sai Ko, which is this beautiful part of Hong Kong where you have mountains, beaches, hiking trails. It's basically one big national park. And my school was pretty close to that area. So we figured we'd kind of develop an itinerary that took us from my school all the way down to Hong Kong Island. And that ended up becoming a run, swim and row of 150km, which we aimed to complete within 24 hours. So from walking, we were moving more into the more energetic and quick world of endurance sports. Running and rowing and swimming. We began that journey, I believe, in May 2010. I was 16 and my friend Charles was 16, and through again, wonderful support from friends, family and community. We managed to complete that in 23 hours and 57 minutes. So just in the nick of time and in the process raised about another 300,000 Hong Kong dollars. At this point, I had so many friends had asked me about these many sort of expeditions and how they themselves could do something similar. And so it was on my mind. How could I provide this platform of connecting endurance activities, pushing yourself mentally and physically so far that people think you're a little bit crazy and want to know the reason why? And of course, the reason why. Being philanthropy, being Charity. So I came up with a pretty simple concept, Nothing new at 24 hour race. Why did I pick 24 hours? Because it felt like something anyone could do. Regardless of whether you were a seasoned athlete or not, the 24 hour race is participated in teams of eight. So you do do laps in this team in a sort of relay style race. And if you're tired, you tag yourself out and a friend goes, if you're feeling good, you do a couple laps. You can run, you can walk, you can jog, in some cases you can crawl. So the platform felt accessible to everyone. What was harder was picking a cause. I knew from my two expedition expeditions with Charles that when things were really tough, it was our respective causes that gave us the energy to carry on.
[12:22]
A
But how did you end up transforming the whole race into a movement against human trafficking?
[12:34]
B
By nature, me picking rare diseases wasn't something I thought every student could buy into. So there was a teacher at my school who I got along very closely with because he himself was ex military, that huge 6 foot 8 Irish ex paratrooper. And I think he was a national athlete. And he said, have you heard about human trafficking? And if I thought of human trafficking, at the time, I assumed it was Liam Neeson style taken gorgeous young woman gets kidnapped by rich Sheikh on the streets of Paris rather than what we know of the issue as today. I was curious and he introduced me to one cause he was working with, which was the trafficking of children from rural communities in Nepal into circuses in India where they were subject to all kinds of abuse. And the situation was so horrific it didn't take me long to say, yeah, this is something that any student could buy in. But it's important to know. I didn't really know anything about human trafficking or modern slavery. I really just cared about sharing the experience of pushing yourself for a good cause, which in my view as Life Transformational. The 24 Hour Race. The first event took place in 2010 and was originally supposed to be a one off event. I remember actually pitching it to teachers at various schools in Hong Kong. And they were sympathetic but ultimately dismissive because the idea that their students who they could struggle to recruit for charity walkathons would be giving their free weekends to run 24 hours on salt seemed a little comical. And so in the end, after fruitless pictures with, I want to say over a dozen schools, we ended up working directly with students and we asked students to put together their own teams. We asked students to help us organize the actual event which was hosted in a public Place required all sorts of permits and fundraising efforts. And that turned out to be the magic ingredient that has propelled the 24 hour race since, which is a movement by students for students. Now I want to emphasize the first event was really intended as a one off event. We would do this relay race one time and that would be it. But it became so popular in its first year that it was clear we needed a successor. In fact, I think we were oversubscribed by twice the number of participants we had capacity for. So at that time I thought, I've learned so much from putting this first event together. It's been like a mini MBA for me as a 16, 17 year old. Rather than do it myself, why don't we give this opportunity to another cohort of students? At the time I just asked people raise their hands if they wanted to be a director. And sure enough, the first generation of directors took the leadership. Since then, the 24 hour race is a global phenomenon. It's the largest student movement fighting slavery in the world. We're in 25 cities, we've had something like a thousand directors pass through our program and many tens of thousands of runners. And we've probably raised around 150 million Hong Kong dollars to support various anti trafficking initiatives around the world. So I guess my origin story really started with a kind of accident, a personal crusade to do something in memory of a friend of mine and then expanded into a global movement. I do want to give a caveat though. That wasn't the goal I had in mind and it was a very unexpected result. I had no premonition the 24 Hour Race would still be around today, you know, 14 years after its first event, let alone doing as well as it is in spite of events like Covid. So I had, if you want to use a sort of Tealian analogy, I had some secret about the world, although I wasn't really aware of it. And that secret was that young people in the age of health and safety and helicopter parenting wanted independent opportunities and they wanted risk and they wanted to push themselves physically and mentally beyond what anyone around them would think is possible. And I had experienced this myself. I figured students would enjoy that too. That was really the foundation and I think that was lucky. I believed in it and have the right support around me. But I don't think, I don't really think that there was any sort of genius inception moment for the 24 hour race movement in spite of its success since then.
[17:01]
A
So exactly how much have you raised over the last 10 years or so?
[17:07]
B
I would say at least 150 million Hong Kong.
[17:11]
A
Wow, that's 150 million Hong Kong. That, that is about how much in us? Like 20.
[17:17]
B
Yeah, 20. 20 million US roughly.
[17:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. And, and for that is a big chunk of money you've raised over the years?
[17:25]
B
Yeah, I would say so. But I'm careful. I think there are people who, or rather than just people, there are organizations that raise that sort of money overnight. Our main strength, we quickly realized wasn't in raising money was important. And we picked the charity partners that we work with. Because we ourselves are not an anti human trafficking grassroots ngo. We don't have staff working with police and government legal officials to combat human trafficking. We can selectively fund programs. But the main strength was that hundreds of thousands, I believe over a million people have directly participated in 24 hour race events. The fact that over a million young people at formative stages of their lives who will go on to do all sorts of different things, take on different careers, have this extremely memorable experience that we talk about at the 24 hour race in the board level these days, about creating life defining moments through the race. Something you, we use the phrase something you're proud to tell your grandkids about. One day when I was your age, I ran a 24 hour race. Mean that with a little bit of irony. That impression and its connection to the race leads to big differences in how these people then address the issue in their later careers. And I can give you a concrete example of this. I'm no longer operationally involved in the race. I sit on the board. Our CEO Daniel is fantastic. He's taken over the helm. Actually. Daniel was a first generation racer. So he joined our race in 2010 and ran it for several years and then eventually came back and joined us 10 years later as the CEO of the organization. And he was telling me about a particular participant who knew nothing about human trafficking, learned about it through the race, became quite positively engaged and went on to work for a law firm. And at this law firm they realized they didn't have any kind of anti human trafficking proviso with how they work for clients. And so he proposed this to the partners and the partners immediately adopted it. And they actually let go of several clients because they were not adhering to supply chain conditions that would ensure that those supply chains were human trafficking free. So in lots of small ways, that's how we hope to make a difference. I don't think that's a small way at all. It's actually a big way. But in many Ways like that's where we think the biggest difference will be. You know, it's not about raising hundreds of millions. Even though that hasn't impacted Saves Lives, it's important. It's more the awareness and advocacy that comes with young people becoming particularly engaged with an issue.
[20:05]
A
I was wondering, while raising money isn't your main focus, when you do receive a significant amount of money, how do you use it? How do you allocate those funds to create the most impact?
[20:25]
B
Yes, when we raise a dollar, 80 to 90 cents of that will go towards charitable activities, and those can be direct support for our partner NGOs. Right now we work with a global partner, A21, who has anti human trafficking initiatives at the grassroots level all across Asia, and indeed in the United States, too. And so we work closely with them to identify projects that we think will resonate with students, that will encourage them to engage with the cause and fund it. And then the rest is awareness and advocacy through the 24 hour race, through its events, et cetera. So right now we're operating at around a 90% efficiency mark towards every dollar that that gets generated, whether that's through ticket sales or fundraising efforts, which we're fairly happy around.
[21:17]
A
So basically, you allocate the funds across different NGOs. All of them are involved in fighting against human trafficking. Is that how you turned the money into real action?
[21:36]
B
The students themselves are still to this day organizing our races. We get them to engage with the leaders in these NGOs to understand what's happening, what it is exactly that they're funding. And we want them to view this as leaders with the kind of fiduciary responsibility of any charity executive. You know, your student director in a country like Hong Kong or Singapore or wherever will directly interview these project stakeholders to determine whether it's a good use of cash or not. And that in itself is a really important lesson for a lot of young people who just write checks blankly, right? A lot of. Not even young people. A lot of us, and this is a personal peeve of mine, but a lot of us relegate our charitable activities to annual contributions to NGOs without really knowing too much about the mechanics of where that money is going. And I believe to some extent that it's much easier to write a check for a good cause than it is to actively engage with a particular issue, because, of course, time is the most important, is the most important commodity that anyone has. So we try and get the students to engage a bit more, to be a little bit more, have a Little bit more scrutiny in terms of thinking about where they put money and why and understanding that there are trade offs and understanding that there is a market, this is something as well. I believe we live in a very morally scrupulous age where causes compete for primacy. But that combined with social media can be pretty bad in my opinion. Right? Where on lots and lots of issues people are forced to take a stance on a non profit issue without really understanding anything about those dynamics. And our view of the 24 hours, for example, we were very clear with the student directors is our audience doesn't need to really know anything or care about human trafficking at all. You know, they don't need to know anything. In fact, if we attract people to come to one of our events, to attract students to come to our events because they think it's a big sleepover and there's a great music festival at night, which is true, we do that, that's fine. We're not trying to convince people to support us by making them feel bad that they're not taking a particular stance. And quite frankly, if someone was to come to a race and say, I don't really care about human trafficking, I'm just going to buy boats from wherever I do or whatever, I don't think we try and judge them for it. At least that's what we advocate. Our job is to win you over in a positive way, but we also respect that. Much like there are hundreds of different, I don't know, clothing brands that are trying to sell you their product. There are many charities, if not more, try to convince you that they are the ones that need support most. We just operate in this wider marketplace of causes and I figure that the best way to win over allies and people to our cause is by having the best time, by putting together the best events and by having the greatest community. If people don't engage with the cause, that's fine too. I feel like we have a much larger impact in any case through just winning attention in the conventional sense.
[24:50]
A
In the last 30 minutes, Chris shared his journey from a humble teenage charity event to leading a global movement valued at over 20 million US dollar. His experiences, whether trekking through gazes and scaling mountains, have shaped his understanding of business leadership and team building. In the next episode releasing tomorrow, we'll dive deeper into Chris leadership approach, drawing parallels between leading expeditions and managing business teams. He will show how lessons learned from life or death situations in the wilderness can translate into powerful leadership strategies in the corporate world. Chris also shares heartfelt advice for young, ambitious talents on how to balance life goals, family expectations and career direction. See you. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe. Subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews. Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.

#231 From Rainy-Day Idea to $20M: Chris Schrader’s Race for Change – Part One

March 14, 202500:26:55

Summary5 min read

Chief Change Officer Podcast Summary: Episode #231 From Rainy-Day Idea to $20M: Chris Schrader’s Race for Change – Part One

Release Date: March 14, 2025

Introduction

In episode #231 of Chief Change Officer, host Vince Chan engages in a compelling conversation with Chris Schrader, the founder and executive chairman of 24 Hour Race—a global movement dedicated to combating human trafficking. This episode delves into Chris's inspiring journey from a spontaneous idea sparked on a rainy day to building a movement that has raised over $20 million USD in the past decade.

Chris Schrader’s Multicultural Background

Chris Schrader brings a rich multicultural perspective to his endeavors. As a third-generation Hong Konger, his family history is a tapestry of diverse cultural influences.

“I grew up really at the tail end of Hong Kong's colonial era, and I had, for all intents and purposes, a really happy childhood and upbringing.” (05:02)

Born in Hong Kong to parents with deep ties to Indonesia and the Netherlands, Chris’s early life was shaped by a blend of Eastern and Western cultures. This unique upbringing instilled in him a global outlook and a deep appreciation for diverse perspectives.

The Genesis of 24 Hour Race

Chris's journey towards founding 24 Hour Race was profoundly influenced by a personal loss. While attending boarding school in the UK, the passing of a childhood friend due to a rare congenital illness ignited a passion for philanthropy.

“I figured, what's something I could do that would encourage people with resources, with money to join that fight?” (07:24)

On a cold, rainy day, Chris proposed an ambitious idea to his friends: to walk across England to raise awareness and funds for rare diseases. Despite initial skepticism, the endeavor proved successful, raising approximately $200,000 HKD. This experience planted the seed for what would become an enduring mission of protest through physical and mental endurance.

From Walking Across England to an Endurance Movement

Building on the success of the initial walk, Chris and his friend Charles sought to create more challenging and impactful events. This led to the inception of the 24 Hour Race, a relay-style endurance race encompassing running, swimming, and rowing over 150 kilometers within a 24-hour period.

“We began that journey, I believe, in May 2010. I was 16 and my friend Charles was 16, and through again, wonderful support from friends, family and community, we managed to complete that in 23 hours and 57 minutes.” (07:24)

The first event was met with overwhelming enthusiasm, far exceeding expectations and laying the foundation for a scalable and replicable model. By empowering students to organize and lead their own races, 24 Hour Race transformed from a one-time event into a global movement.

Transformation to a Movement Against Human Trafficking

Initially focused on raising funds for rare diseases, Chris strategically pivoted the mission of 24 Hour Race towards combating human trafficking. This shift was influenced by a teacher involved in anti-trafficking efforts, who introduced Chris to the severe and often overlooked issue of child trafficking in South Asia.

“I knew from my two expedition expeditions with Charles that when things were really tough, it was our respective causes that gave us the energy to carry on.” (12:22)

Recognizing the universal relevance and urgency of human trafficking, Chris redefined the race’s mission to harness youthful energy and endurance towards fighting modern slavery. This change resonated deeply with students, fueling the movement’s rapid expansion.

Impact and Fundraising Achievements

Over the past decade, 24 Hour Race has grown exponentially, now operating in 25 cities worldwide with over a thousand directors and hundreds of thousands of participants. The movement has successfully raised approximately $150 million HKD (roughly $20 million USD) to support various anti-trafficking initiatives globally.

“Our main strength was that hundreds of thousands, I believe over a million people have directly participated in 24 hour race events.” (17:07)

Chris emphasizes that beyond fundraising, the true impact lies in awareness and advocacy. By creating life-defining experiences for young people, the movement fosters a deep, lasting commitment to social change.

Allocation of Funds and Strategic Approach

24 Hour Race ensures that 80-90% of every dollar raised is directed towards charitable activities, primarily through partnerships with organizations like A21. This strategic allocation underscores a commitment to efficiency and transparency.

“We work closely with them ([A21]) to identify projects that we think will resonate with students, that will encourage them to engage with the cause and fund it.” (20:25)

Moreover, the movement integrates educational initiatives, encouraging student leaders to engage directly with NGO partners to understand the impact of their contributions. This hands-on approach cultivates a sense of responsibility and informed advocacy among participants.

Lessons and Philosophy

Chris attributes the success of 24 Hour Race to its student-driven model and the intrinsic motivation of young people to push their limits for meaningful causes. He believes that empowering students to lead and make informed decisions about their philanthropic efforts fosters a generation of conscientious changemakers.

“Our view of the 24 hours, for example, we were very clear with the student directors is our audience doesn't need to really know anything or care about human trafficking at all.” (21:36)

This philosophy emphasizes inclusivity and accessibility, making significant social impact achievable for participants regardless of their athletic prowess or prior knowledge of the cause.

Conclusion and Tease for Part Two

In the final segments of part one, Vince Chan summarizes Chris's journey, highlighting the transformative power of endurance and purposeful action. Chris's experiences underscore the importance of leadership, team building, and strategic philanthropy.

“I'm no longer operationally involved in the race. I sit on the board. Our CEO Daniel is fantastic.” (17:19)

Looking ahead, episode #232 promises to explore Chris's leadership approach, drawing parallels between leading expeditions and managing business teams. Listeners can expect insights into how survival skills translate into effective corporate strategies and heartfelt advice for balancing personal and professional ambitions.

Key Takeaways:

24 Hour Race evolved from a spontaneous walk to a global movement tackling human trafficking.
Youth empowerment and student leadership are central to the movement’s success.
Strategic fundraising and transparent allocation of funds ensure impactful philanthropy.
Awareness and advocacy among young participants create lasting social change beyond financial contributions.

Notable Quotes:

“I've been guided by countless role models, emerging stronger, better, and happier at every critical juncture.” – Vince Chan (00:13)
“It’s a life-defining moment through the race.” – Chris Schrader (17:19)
“Our job is to win you over in a positive way, but we also respect that.” – Chris Schrader (21:36)

For those inspired by Chris Schrader’s story and eager to learn more about effective leadership strategies, stay tuned for part two of this episode, where deeper insights into leveraging outdoor challenges for corporate success will be unveiled.

Subscribe to Chief Change Officer on LinkedIn, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube to stay updated with transformative stories and actionable insights.

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Transcript21 lines

[00:13]
A
Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change. Progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. 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 US$20 million 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'll be talking for about an hour split into two parts. In this episode, part one, we'll dive into 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 teenager the world across England raised five figures in US dollar and sparked an eight figure US dollar global movement. Tomorrow'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, this episode highlights how lessons learned from life or death situations in the wilderness translate into effect effective leadership strategies in the corporate world. Chris also offers his heartfelt advice for young ambitious talents on balancing life goals, family expectations and career direction. Welcome Chris. Welcome to my show.
[04:05]
B
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[04:08]
A
Chris, do you remember that I invited you to an in person event hosted by me back in 2016? And I can't believe that after so many years I got the second chance of inviting you back now in a virtual format.
[04:32]
B
Thank you, Vince. They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. But in this case I think we can both agree that's a good thing. And I'm very excited to be chatting with you again for a second time with a decade that doesn't really feel like it should have been a decade later.
[04:49]
A
Chris, you and I are born and raised in Hong Kong, but I know you have a very interesting multicultural background. Tell us more about that.
[05:03]
B
Sure. So I'm a third generation Hong Konger. My grandparents moved here in 1960. My grandmother's family had been in Indonesia as Dutch colonists for something like 300 years. Her father and her uncles were all in government in the last colonial government of Indonesia. And of course, after World War II, they moved back to the Netherlands. And my grandmother was half Indonesian, and she never quite felt like she fit in. So when she met my grandfather and he proposed, she agreed on the condition that they would find their way back to Asia. And sure enough, a few years later, they moved to Hong Kong and got married in Hong Kong just a few days after moving in. And less than a few years later, less than a year later, my mother was born here, and I was actually a similar product. So my mother, who grew up in Hong Kong and went to school here, went to the Netherlands, found herself a hub, and basically said, if you want to marry me, you got to find your way back to Hong Kong. And that was my father, who was studying medicine at the time. For him to get qualified as a doctor, he had to go spend a year of training in London. And I happened there. The Catholic accident, I think, is the way to put it. But within a few months of my birth, we were all back in Hong Kong, and the rest of my siblings, I'm one of four, were all born in Hong Kong. So I grew up really at the tail end of Hong Kong's colonial era, and I had, for all intents and purposes, a really happy childhood and upbringing. I got to the age of about 13 or 14, and then I went to school in the UK. I went to a small boarding school with a military background.
[06:56]
A
Up until this point, you had what seemed like an uneventful childhood, but then something happened while you were attending boarding school in Britain that planted the seed for what would later become the 24 hour race. Can you dive into that? Could you share more about what happened.
[07:24]
B
In detail while there? One of the. The more defining events in my life happened, and that was the passing away of a childhood friend of mine who had a rare congenital illness at the age of 14. I didn't have money, I didn't have resources. I didn't have any talents to contribute to his legacy. But I figured, what's something I could do that would encourage people with resources, with money to. To maybe join that fight? And so, on a typically cold, rainy English day, me and a few friends were sitting together talking about, of course, our summer plans. And as a joke and kind of in a serious way, I suggested, why don't we walk across England? And I remember all of my friends laughing lightheartedly, except for one who looked at me dead straight and said, let's do it. And sure enough, through the support of parents, teachers, and friends, six Months later, myself and my friend found ourselves walking across England, albeit the short way, that is the length way, rather than up to Scotland. So we started at Land's End in the southwestern most point of the UK and walked back to our school just outside of Reading Post London. And in the process of that, we raised something like 200,000 Hong Kong dollars, which was more than I could have possibly imagined. Perhaps more importantly, we raised a ton of awareness about the plight of people suffering from illnesses that are so rare, they basically don't get any attention from the pharmaceutical industry. And this began my journey of protest, a type of protest that is pushing yourself physically and mentally for causes that you deeply care about. I ended up getting a scholarship to come back to Hong Kong and study at United World College. And me and my friend, we wanted to do something, a kind of 2.0 of our first expedition. And so where I was on his home turf in the UK for the first round, the idea was he could fly over to Hong Kong and we do our 2.0 there. The problem with doing an expedition in Hong Kong is that a walk across Hong Kong island is something you just do with your girlfriend on any day of the week as a recreational kind of easy afternoon. So we needed to come up with something a little bit more challenging. Lipo Chun the school is in Sai Ko, which is this beautiful part of Hong Kong where you have mountains, beaches, hiking trails. It's basically one big national park. And my school was pretty close to that area. So we figured we'd kind of develop an itinerary that took us from my school all the way down to Hong Kong Island. And that ended up becoming a run, swim and row of 150km, which we aimed to complete within 24 hours. So from walking, we were moving more into the more energetic and quick world of endurance sports. Running and rowing and swimming. We began that journey, I believe, in May 2010. I was 16 and my friend Charles was 16, and through again, wonderful support from friends, family and community. We managed to complete that in 23 hours and 57 minutes. So just in the nick of time and in the process raised about another 300,000 Hong Kong dollars. At this point, I had so many friends had asked me about these many sort of expeditions and how they themselves could do something similar. And so it was on my mind. How could I provide this platform of connecting endurance activities, pushing yourself mentally and physically so far that people think you're a little bit crazy and want to know the reason why? And of course, the reason why. Being philanthropy, being Charity. So I came up with a pretty simple concept, Nothing new at 24 hour race. Why did I pick 24 hours? Because it felt like something anyone could do. Regardless of whether you were a seasoned athlete or not, the 24 hour race is participated in teams of eight. So you do do laps in this team in a sort of relay style race. And if you're tired, you tag yourself out and a friend goes, if you're feeling good, you do a couple laps. You can run, you can walk, you can jog, in some cases you can crawl. So the platform felt accessible to everyone. What was harder was picking a cause. I knew from my two expedition expeditions with Charles that when things were really tough, it was our respective causes that gave us the energy to carry on.
[12:22]
A
But how did you end up transforming the whole race into a movement against human trafficking?
[12:34]
B
By nature, me picking rare diseases wasn't something I thought every student could buy into. So there was a teacher at my school who I got along very closely with because he himself was ex military, that huge 6 foot 8 Irish ex paratrooper. And I think he was a national athlete. And he said, have you heard about human trafficking? And if I thought of human trafficking, at the time, I assumed it was Liam Neeson style taken gorgeous young woman gets kidnapped by rich Sheikh on the streets of Paris rather than what we know of the issue as today. I was curious and he introduced me to one cause he was working with, which was the trafficking of children from rural communities in Nepal into circuses in India where they were subject to all kinds of abuse. And the situation was so horrific it didn't take me long to say, yeah, this is something that any student could buy in. But it's important to know. I didn't really know anything about human trafficking or modern slavery. I really just cared about sharing the experience of pushing yourself for a good cause, which in my view as Life Transformational. The 24 Hour Race. The first event took place in 2010 and was originally supposed to be a one off event. I remember actually pitching it to teachers at various schools in Hong Kong. And they were sympathetic but ultimately dismissive because the idea that their students who they could struggle to recruit for charity walkathons would be giving their free weekends to run 24 hours on salt seemed a little comical. And so in the end, after fruitless pictures with, I want to say over a dozen schools, we ended up working directly with students and we asked students to put together their own teams. We asked students to help us organize the actual event which was hosted in a public Place required all sorts of permits and fundraising efforts. And that turned out to be the magic ingredient that has propelled the 24 hour race since, which is a movement by students for students. Now I want to emphasize the first event was really intended as a one off event. We would do this relay race one time and that would be it. But it became so popular in its first year that it was clear we needed a successor. In fact, I think we were oversubscribed by twice the number of participants we had capacity for. So at that time I thought, I've learned so much from putting this first event together. It's been like a mini MBA for me as a 16, 17 year old. Rather than do it myself, why don't we give this opportunity to another cohort of students? At the time I just asked people raise their hands if they wanted to be a director. And sure enough, the first generation of directors took the leadership. Since then, the 24 hour race is a global phenomenon. It's the largest student movement fighting slavery in the world. We're in 25 cities, we've had something like a thousand directors pass through our program and many tens of thousands of runners. And we've probably raised around 150 million Hong Kong dollars to support various anti trafficking initiatives around the world. So I guess my origin story really started with a kind of accident, a personal crusade to do something in memory of a friend of mine and then expanded into a global movement. I do want to give a caveat though. That wasn't the goal I had in mind and it was a very unexpected result. I had no premonition the 24 Hour Race would still be around today, you know, 14 years after its first event, let alone doing as well as it is in spite of events like Covid. So I had, if you want to use a sort of Tealian analogy, I had some secret about the world, although I wasn't really aware of it. And that secret was that young people in the age of health and safety and helicopter parenting wanted independent opportunities and they wanted risk and they wanted to push themselves physically and mentally beyond what anyone around them would think is possible. And I had experienced this myself. I figured students would enjoy that too. That was really the foundation and I think that was lucky. I believed in it and have the right support around me. But I don't think, I don't really think that there was any sort of genius inception moment for the 24 hour race movement in spite of its success since then.
[17:01]
A
So exactly how much have you raised over the last 10 years or so?
[17:07]
B
I would say at least 150 million Hong Kong.
[17:11]
A
Wow, that's 150 million Hong Kong. That, that is about how much in us? Like 20.
[17:17]
B
Yeah, 20. 20 million US roughly.
[17:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. And, and for that is a big chunk of money you've raised over the years?
[17:25]
B
Yeah, I would say so. But I'm careful. I think there are people who, or rather than just people, there are organizations that raise that sort of money overnight. Our main strength, we quickly realized wasn't in raising money was important. And we picked the charity partners that we work with. Because we ourselves are not an anti human trafficking grassroots ngo. We don't have staff working with police and government legal officials to combat human trafficking. We can selectively fund programs. But the main strength was that hundreds of thousands, I believe over a million people have directly participated in 24 hour race events. The fact that over a million young people at formative stages of their lives who will go on to do all sorts of different things, take on different careers, have this extremely memorable experience that we talk about at the 24 hour race in the board level these days, about creating life defining moments through the race. Something you, we use the phrase something you're proud to tell your grandkids about. One day when I was your age, I ran a 24 hour race. Mean that with a little bit of irony. That impression and its connection to the race leads to big differences in how these people then address the issue in their later careers. And I can give you a concrete example of this. I'm no longer operationally involved in the race. I sit on the board. Our CEO Daniel is fantastic. He's taken over the helm. Actually. Daniel was a first generation racer. So he joined our race in 2010 and ran it for several years and then eventually came back and joined us 10 years later as the CEO of the organization. And he was telling me about a particular participant who knew nothing about human trafficking, learned about it through the race, became quite positively engaged and went on to work for a law firm. And at this law firm they realized they didn't have any kind of anti human trafficking proviso with how they work for clients. And so he proposed this to the partners and the partners immediately adopted it. And they actually let go of several clients because they were not adhering to supply chain conditions that would ensure that those supply chains were human trafficking free. So in lots of small ways, that's how we hope to make a difference. I don't think that's a small way at all. It's actually a big way. But in many Ways like that's where we think the biggest difference will be. You know, it's not about raising hundreds of millions. Even though that hasn't impacted Saves Lives, it's important. It's more the awareness and advocacy that comes with young people becoming particularly engaged with an issue.
[20:05]
A
I was wondering, while raising money isn't your main focus, when you do receive a significant amount of money, how do you use it? How do you allocate those funds to create the most impact?
[20:25]
B
Yes, when we raise a dollar, 80 to 90 cents of that will go towards charitable activities, and those can be direct support for our partner NGOs. Right now we work with a global partner, A21, who has anti human trafficking initiatives at the grassroots level all across Asia, and indeed in the United States, too. And so we work closely with them to identify projects that we think will resonate with students, that will encourage them to engage with the cause and fund it. And then the rest is awareness and advocacy through the 24 hour race, through its events, et cetera. So right now we're operating at around a 90% efficiency mark towards every dollar that that gets generated, whether that's through ticket sales or fundraising efforts, which we're fairly happy around.
[21:17]
A
So basically, you allocate the funds across different NGOs. All of them are involved in fighting against human trafficking. Is that how you turned the money into real action?
[21:36]
B
The students themselves are still to this day organizing our races. We get them to engage with the leaders in these NGOs to understand what's happening, what it is exactly that they're funding. And we want them to view this as leaders with the kind of fiduciary responsibility of any charity executive. You know, your student director in a country like Hong Kong or Singapore or wherever will directly interview these project stakeholders to determine whether it's a good use of cash or not. And that in itself is a really important lesson for a lot of young people who just write checks blankly, right? A lot of. Not even young people. A lot of us, and this is a personal peeve of mine, but a lot of us relegate our charitable activities to annual contributions to NGOs without really knowing too much about the mechanics of where that money is going. And I believe to some extent that it's much easier to write a check for a good cause than it is to actively engage with a particular issue, because, of course, time is the most important, is the most important commodity that anyone has. So we try and get the students to engage a bit more, to be a little bit more, have a Little bit more scrutiny in terms of thinking about where they put money and why and understanding that there are trade offs and understanding that there is a market, this is something as well. I believe we live in a very morally scrupulous age where causes compete for primacy. But that combined with social media can be pretty bad in my opinion. Right? Where on lots and lots of issues people are forced to take a stance on a non profit issue without really understanding anything about those dynamics. And our view of the 24 hours, for example, we were very clear with the student directors is our audience doesn't need to really know anything or care about human trafficking at all. You know, they don't need to know anything. In fact, if we attract people to come to one of our events, to attract students to come to our events because they think it's a big sleepover and there's a great music festival at night, which is true, we do that, that's fine. We're not trying to convince people to support us by making them feel bad that they're not taking a particular stance. And quite frankly, if someone was to come to a race and say, I don't really care about human trafficking, I'm just going to buy boats from wherever I do or whatever, I don't think we try and judge them for it. At least that's what we advocate. Our job is to win you over in a positive way, but we also respect that. Much like there are hundreds of different, I don't know, clothing brands that are trying to sell you their product. There are many charities, if not more, try to convince you that they are the ones that need support most. We just operate in this wider marketplace of causes and I figure that the best way to win over allies and people to our cause is by having the best time, by putting together the best events and by having the greatest community. If people don't engage with the cause, that's fine too. I feel like we have a much larger impact in any case through just winning attention in the conventional sense.
[24:50]
A
In the last 30 minutes, Chris shared his journey from a humble teenage charity event to leading a global movement valued at over 20 million US dollar. His experiences, whether trekking through gazes and scaling mountains, have shaped his understanding of business leadership and team building. In the next episode releasing tomorrow, we'll dive deeper into Chris leadership approach, drawing parallels between leading expeditions and managing business teams. He will show how lessons learned from life or death situations in the wilderness can translate into powerful leadership strategies in the corporate world. Chris also shares heartfelt advice for young, ambitious talents on how to balance life goals, family expectations and career direction. See you. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe. Subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews. Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.