30 Under 30: Introducing ‘happiness expert’ Les Latchman

Les created video and social content throughout his trip and on his return, he gave talks at businesses and back at his university. “I made a presentation ‘Five things you can do every day to live a happier life’,” he says.

He continued working on video shoots during his internship and when that came to an end, he and his cousin launched a video production agency.

“I headed up the marketing side and my cousin focused on the video side,” he says. “But in reality, we both did a bit of everything. We specialised in short-form documentaries using the power of social media to connect people around the world, and told stories you don’t necessarily see on social.”

One of their series focused around the stories of homeless people. They invited followers to put forward questions, for example, how did a person come to be homeless, and also more practical considerations, such as how does a homeless woman deal with her period on the streets.

Les is proud of the content they created and the overall journey they went on, including living hyper-locally in south-east Asia. Ultimately, though, the documentary side proved hard to make a living from, so the business pivoted hard to commercial video production, which wasn’t what he signed up for.

He started job hunting, focusing his search on more responsibly-minded companies. “I’ve always been purpose-driven,” he says. “I want to feel like I’m using my time on earth in a positive way, giving back when I get out of bed in the morning.”

It was through B Corp that he discovered the existence of Intrepid and something clicked, he says: “The more I learnt about them, they stood out as a super-cool company, focused on giving back to local communities.”

Les secured a marketing role with the company three years ago, which gave him his first experience of B2B marketing. Thanks to a promotion, the role has widened to become more generalist, although he still leads on the trade side.

He used his time on furlough during the pandemic – and the cash he had saved by moving back with his parents – to upgrade his camera equipment and to invest in training to improve his photography and videography skills.

This has helped him into pole position, with the reopening of travel, to become Intrepid’s go-to in-house photographer.

“I was fortunate to be on the first departure of Intrepid’s new ‘Hiking the Dolomites’ trip, and my content has been used across our website and on third-party sites.”

Then he joined TTG’s Sustainable Travel Heroes fam trip to Peru, where he helped agents with their content. “Some of them were getting enquiries during the trip, off the back of posts they did. Their personal content really resonated with customers.”

His own photo of Intrepid’s local guide Ale graced TTG’s September cover, inspiring praise from the general manager of Intrepid DMC in Peru: “Absolutely thrilled to see how a picture can capture so much of Ale’s essence,” said Fernando Rodriguez.

However, it’s looking likely that Les’ best work is still to come: this month he’s headed down to Antarctica and he’s bought a new telephoto lens. There could well be another TTG cover….