Growth Stories
Growth Stories
In 2012, whilst travelling the remote wilderness of British Columbia, Richard and Alexa Sutcliffe found their purpose and defined their mission, to Inspire Meaningful Escapism, and Passenger was born.
Escapism – a constant desire to get off grid, to wander, to travel, to connect with people and nature.
Today Passenger is an outdoor brand rooted in nature, connection and wellbeing. As a direct-to-consumer brand Passenger sells 90% of products via its websites and 10% via carefully selected strategic retail partners.
Richard and Alexa were joined by founder of Surfdome, Justin Stone as Executive Chairman and Jon Lane as CEO in 2019 and the business has since experienced exceptional growth. In 2022, Passenger was #2 on the UK’s Growth 100 list, with a 345% revenue CAGR over 2 years. The brand launched new international websites in the same year, which have grown to 20% of monthly sales within only a year.
For every order Passenger plant a tree and over 90% of the product range is made with lower impact materials like recycled cotton, recycled polyester, hemp and organic cotton. To date, Passenger has planted over 500,000 native trees and protected 28,000,000 sqm of rainforest through their charity partners.
After a successful 2022 having achieved sales of £33m, Growth Partner partnered with Passenger alongside ex-GymShark CEO, Steve Hewitt, who joined as Chairman to support the team in their plan to grow the business to over £100m in sales.
Why we love Passenger
Establishing itself as a responsible, purpose-led brand from the beginning has enabled Passenger to challenge the expectation that conscious buying decisions come at a premium. Passenger has successfully created an accessible brand that is aligned with their consumers in wanting to leave as little environmental footprint as possible.
The team have created an extremely transparent, high-performance culture that is agile and enables the business to scale quickly. The purpose-led approach, workplace environment and speed of growth has enabled Passenger to attract an impressive and highly skilled team.
Looking ahead…
Passenger is one of the fastest growth consumer brands in the UK and is building significant traction in international territories. The team are clear on their strategy and plans to continue this growth whilst consistently increasing its investment in ESG activities and pushing market expectations from a sustainable outdoor brand.