11 inspiring people from 11 years of Escape: Ben Keene
Ben Keene, founder of Tribewanted and Rebel Book Club, has had a life of adventure. Here are some of the parts of his journey.
When we first started Escape the City back in 2010, we had no idea how many incredibly inspiring people we'd meet along the way. We set out to help ambitious and talented people to do work that matters to them and the world, and through the years we've encountered thousands of people who demonstrate that it's possible to do something different with your career and make a difference in the process. While it was hard to choose just 11 stories, here we've outlined a few of the people who we come back to regularly when we're looking for a bit of inspiration ourselves.
We hope you enjoy reading their stories and that they can be an inspiration to you, too!
Ben Keene - The Rebel
About Ben:
Never one to follow the traditional path, Ben began his career as a rebel.
On January 14, 2006, Ben Keene received an email that changed his life. The weather outside was rainy, windy, and freezing and Keene was holed up in his loft office, the window fogged with mist. He had just taken a sip of hot tea when the message popped up, and Keene did a double-take at the subject line: “A TRIBE IS WANTED”
From there, Ben co-founded Tribewanted, an eco-friendly sustainable community existing simultaneously in the virtual world of the internet and on an actual desert island.
With huge media interest, the courageous and bold idea could have had enormous consequences for tourism. The idea behind Tribewanted was to recruit a group of similar people online before heading to the Fijian Island of Vorovoro to build a sustainable community alongside the local indigenous tribe.
The idea was swept along with a flood of interest, with the island lease was secured, the virtual community sprung to life. All major decisions on the island were voted on by an online tribe that anyone around the world could join. The idea was so exciting that the journey was turned into as a 5 part BBC series “Paradise or Bust” and a book, Tribewanted.
Ben spent 10 years building and expanding Tribewanted beyond the crowdfunded sustainable-tourism villages on an island in Fiji, to a beach in Sierra Leone and a farm in Umbria. He faced challenges including a fire sweeping through the island in week one of the project, a military coup, and a tropical cyclone threatened to wipe out the emerging village. Online disagreements also made decision making hard and pushed the project to the edge.
From there Ben became a member of the Escape the City family, inspiring thousands of talented career changers and aspiring entrepreneurs to take the leap and launch their ideas into the world. Ben led the Escape school team for 5 years, became a business advisor and mentor at Virgin Startup, and Zinc. Ben has supported and mentored thousands of people to set up impactful businesses on a bootstrap budget.
Ben has shared his adventurous startup stories and learnings with audiences all over the world including at a CIA conference in Las Vegas.
In 2018 Ben decided to take his family on the adventure of a lifetime, by moving his wife and 3 young kids to a Thai Island for 6 months, whilst working remotely as a business mentor and building Rebel Book Club, a growing community of 1000+ subscribers in 25 countries. Rebel Book Club has hosted renowned authors such as Ryan Holiday, Seth Godin, and
What we love about Ben’s story:
Ben is truly one of the most inspiring people we know. His ability to experiment, launch and inspire knows no bounds.
From Ben’s initial work launching a “career break cafe” blog to help mid-career professionals to go on adventures and figure out their next steps, to launching a business on a remote island (before the days of Zoom!), to supporting founders to launch impactful businesses. Ben has led the kind of career that most of us only aspire to.