Meet the Team

  • Thomas Duncan Bell

    FOUNDER

    Living on the bipolar spectrum, with a side order of PTSD & ADHD, there’s simply no international speaker who commands a room like Thomas. After growing up in difficult circumstances, Thomas successfully turned his life around to help other people, saving countless lives along the way. Running thousands of miles in obstacle course endurance events around the world, Thomas feels that the only way to truly find ourselves, is to challenge ourselves and stretch beyond the boundaries we hold in our mind. This is the reason he decided to set up ‘Wellbeing in the Wilderness’, to afford companies the chance to inspire and empower their staff on a wider level than has ever been possible before.

    Known internationally as The Bipolar Businessman, Thomas has already reached millions of people with his writing, keynote speaking and through various media. He frequently works together with global companies to develop their mental health programmes while ensuring their business needs. Thomas is now one of the UK’s most popular mental health speakers, as well as the primary mental health commentator and keynote speaker for the Institute of Directors, where he previously won awards for ‘Leadership in Mental Health’. He believes that through choosing our own discomfort we may better tackle that challenges that life throws at us daily.

  • Geoff McDonald

    CO-FOUNDER

    Geoff has been an active campaigner for breaking the stigma associated with mental health in the corporate world since holding a 25 year role as Global Vice President of HR, Marketing, Communications and Sustainability with Unilever (a corporation with over 170,000 employees in 90 countries around the world) and has participated in a number of BBC programmes and campaigns regarding this subject, as well as writing articles for the Huffington Post, FT and a number of HR related journals. Having worked with Thomas on a wide number of occasions since 2016, Geoff knew they were symbiotic in their mission and mindset around physical fitness and mental health; he has also led wellbeing challenges in recent years for a host of major brands and wanted to work with Thomas & Simon to champion a whole new approach to company wellbeing initiatives, that genuinely change lives.

    With an active interest in fitness and how it relates to wellbeing, Geoff has recently been running challenges with up to 100 people, for the likes of HSBC, clearly seeing that there’s potential to expand on the concept of wellbeing through challenge mindset and adversity, Geoff joined Thomas to scale their initiatives Globally, for businesses looking to make real, tangible and sustainable change, in terms of how they evolve and cultivate their people.

  • Simon Albert

    CHALLENGE DIRECTOR

    Simon has travelled extensively throughout the world, climbing mountains, rafting rivers and helping local NGOs to build houses, schools and health centres. He began charity trekking as a participant in 1995 to Jordan and then climbed Kilimanjaro the following year. He identified a niche in the expeditions market and, on returning to the UK, voluntarily organised two expeditions to Cuba and Tanzania - both of which were a huge success.

    At the age of 27, and having raised more than £100,000 for charity, Simon set up Charity Challenge with co-director and best friend Jeremy Gane. He has personally taken part in scores of the challenges including building houses for orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa, as well as for families affected by the Asian tsunami in India and Sri Lanka. Simon has also personally led and organised challenges around the world. His passion for helping others is what drives the constant development of the business. In 2015, his efforts were recognised with a British Citizen Award medal for Business. Simon has recognised that there is far more need for targeted mental wellbeing-based challenges, and having become friends with Thomas and Geoff, all with a shared focus for changing lives, Simon felt like as a unit the trio could set a precedent in terms of how companies invest in their people’s wellbeing.

Contact us

Thomas, Geoff and Simon are now working with businesses around the World to schedule events throughout the next 24 months.

If you’re interested to find out more about what could suit your team then please reach out and we’ll support you to understand the best fit.

All our costs are fixed, to include travel/flights, accommodation, food and visa’s where needed, so we take care of everything, so that all you have to do it show up and challenge yourself!