In an industry built on taking risks, high adrenaline and constant change, John O’Sullivan, Chief Executive and Executive Director of Experience Co, is redefining what leadership can look like. Speaking at a recent AGSM @ UNSW Business School Meet the Director event, Mr O’Sullivan shared his insights on leading with purpose, resilience and authenticity in one of Australia’s most unpredictable and exhilarating sectors: adventure tourism. 

“I’ve worked in three sectors – travel and tourism, sport and entertainment, and media,” he told an MBA student audience. “It’s always been in career sectors that have been a little bit left of centre to what a lot of my mates did – investment banking, law – but I’ve had a great opportunity nonetheless.” 

Over 30 years, Mr O’Sullivan has built an inspiring career across these industries, in roles defined by high stakes, high visibility, and adventure. Before joining Experience Co Limited, he served as Managing Director of Tourism Australia, overseeing Australia’s record growth in international visits. He holds an Executive MBA from AGSM @ UNSW Business School and is Chair of Tourism Tropical North Queensland. He is also a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.  

“I’m passionate about people,” he told the audience. “I like making people happy. The industries I’ve been in are about giving people real-life experiences – and that’s what I love.” 

From Brisbane to the boardroom 

Mr O’Sullivan grew up in Brisbane, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Leisure Studies from Griffith University. “I always wanted to go and do law, but I didn’t take the opportunity that my parents gave me at school as well as I should have,” he said.  

His first experience leading people came during the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. “I was what they called a planning team leader for the Paralympic integration, which was making sure that the planning we did for the Olympic Games was taken and then replicated for the Paralympic Games. That was my first taste of leading a virtual team in a matrix structure, and I quite enjoyed that.” 

From there, Mr O’Sullivan moved into senior leadership roles at Foxtel and Fox Sports, gaining experience in media, broadcasting, and commercial partnerships. He later took on what he described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as Managing Director of Tourism Australia.

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Leading Tourism Australia was both a privilege and a major responsibility. As Mr O’Sullivan explained, the role meant marketing Australia on the world stage – shaping how the nation is seen internationally and serving as its global voice and brand ambassador. “Tourism Australia has this really interesting perspective – if you think about how we’re perceived internationally, Tourism Australia is the organisation that defines that,” he said. 

Mr O’Sullivan said that experience also taught him the importance of stakeholder management. “One of the most important things you can do as a leader, or on your way to becoming a leader, is managing your stakeholders – understanding their motivations, what’s important to them, and being able to manage that. You have to know your numbers, and you have to be able to talk about your business.” 

He also learned the nuances of leading organisations under public scrutiny, since everyone, from politicians to ordinary citizens, has an opinion about how Australia should be promoted to the world. “Tourism Australia was a great job, probably the best I’ve had. But it’s also a job where the 27 million people in Australia can do your job better than you can,” he added. 

Building culture into the tourism industry 

In 2019, Mr O’Sullivan became Chief Executive Officer of Experience Co Limited, an ASX-listed adventure tourism company with 36 sites across Australia and New Zealand. The business spans tandem skydiving, Great Barrier Reef tours, treetop adventure parks and luxury lodges, attracting around 1 million customers a year.  

Operating across five divisions, its largest is tandem skydiving, with more than 200,000 people jumping from 15,000 feet annually, making Experience Co one of the world’s leading providers of tandem skydiving experiences. Guided by its purpose to help people “escape the ordinary,” Mr O’Sullivan continues to expand the company’s reputation for delivering unforgettable adventure tourism experiences. 

“We’re also one of the largest operators on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park out of Cairns and Port Douglas. Part of our thesis up there is about, yes, we’ll let you experience the reef, but we also want to teach you about the reef as well, because our whole notion is around, we want you to have a great time, but we want you to learn about the reef, because if you understand the reef, you’re more likely to come back and visit and talk about it,” he said. 

To align such a diverse and unique business operation, Mr O’Sullivan made purpose and culture his north star. “When I started, we went out to [the teams] and said, ‘What do you want the purpose of the organisation to be? And when I say purpose, I mean, what is it? Why do you come to work every day? What’s your purpose?” he said. “Our purpose came from the bottom up, not from the boardroom.” 

Those efforts led the company to define the core values of Experience Co's operations: safety, excellence, respect and adventure. “It’s on every wall of every operating location that we have as a business,” Mr O’Sullivan said. “Simple messages, repeated consistently, build alignment.” 

Clarity around core values, he said, is vital in any business. “If you’ve got a crew on the reef that doesn’t take safety properly, doesn’t respect a customer, doesn’t think about excellence in what they’re doing, then it kind of all unravels pretty quickly.” 

For Mr O’Sullivan, leadership also requires empathy. “Being a CEO is quite lonely,” he admitted. “You can’t be everyone’s friend. You might have to make tough calls that affect people you like. You can be hard on people or have high expectations, but I think you need to do it with empathy.” 

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He credits a former mentor with showing him what genuine leadership looks like. “We put a football match on between the Socceroos and Argentina on sale without having a long-form agreement, and it cost us net, I think, around $5-6 million,” he recalled. “But my CEO never once threw me under the bus; that taught me what real leadership looks like.” 

Resilience, reflection and results 

Few industries were hit harder by COVID-19 than tourism – and adventure tourism most of all. “We had skydivers who didn’t want to jump with customers, vessels docked, and international borders closed,” Mr O’Sullivan said. “But we made a conscious decision to be proactive.”  

That meant preparing early for reopening and lobbying the government for clarity, as well as acquiring Treetops Adventure and Wild Bush Luxury to strengthen the company’s domestic base. “The reason why we bought Treetop Adventures and Wild Bush Luxury was that pre-COVID our business was 35% domestic customers and 65% international customers,” he said. “And the lesson out of COVID we took was, well, we need to have a bit more of a balanced customer base. Our overall customer mix now is 50-50, which is good.”  

It’s a strategy that has worked well. This year, Experience Co reported its strongest performance since 2019, as revenue rose 6% to $134.3 million this year. 

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But business aside, the pandemic also reshaped how Mr O’Sullivan manages his own wellbeing. “In 2018, when I was at Tourism Australia, I kept a diary of how many nights I was away domestically [internationally], and I was away 175 nights, and I remember thinking to myself, that’s not sustainable,” he said. “So, I started to put in some changes around that. Now I don’t travel on weekends, I get home Fridays, and I make time for tennis.” 

He also learned to draw firmer boundaries between work and home. “There are very few professions, I think, that you can just leave what you’ve done at work at the door when you leave work,” Mr O’Sullivan said. “Probably one of the few roles is being an airline pilot – they switch the thing off, and then get off, and don’t worry about a lot else after that.” 

“For me, it’s about exercise,” he continued. “I played a lot of tennis when I was a kid, and I still do, and I play against people a lot younger than me. I actually like running around because it lets you just de-stress. You just get that adrenaline going, you get those endorphins, and you kind of sweat out the day that might have been lousy.” 

The shift to remote work during the pandemic taught him small rituals of discipline. “I come out of the study, and I actually physically shut the door,” he said. “It’s those little traits you pick up, and they’re all individual to everyone,” he said.  

When asked how he defines success, Mr O’Sullivan pointed first to culture and customer experience. “Staff engagement is really important,” he said. “We track Net Promoter Scores because it ties back to customer referrals – word-of-mouth is a far stronger advocate for your business than any kind of paid advertising.” 

He emphasised that safety remains a non-negotiable priority. “It’s really important that our approach to safety and our outcomes on safety are strong,” he said.  

Integrity, he added, is central to how he leads. “If you say you’ll do something on Wednesday, do it on Wednesday – not Tuesday or Thursday. That’s how you build trust.” 

Finally, Mr O’Sullivan offered straightforward but hard-earned advice for aspiring leaders. Credibility, he said, begins with mastering the fundamentals – being a team player, understanding your stakeholders, and taking accountability. “Be good at your job and deliver your numbers,” he said. “And remember, culture eats strategy for breakfast.”