The Founders
Florian Steiger
Florian is a lifetime entrepreneur who invests in what he loves . As a huge music lover, he started there - building a chain of record stores across Switzerland. In 2005 he moved on to real estate and travel.
Florian’s soul belongs to the Swiss mountains. You can often find Florian hiking, climbing and skiing in Zermatt - ultimately there can never be enough powder …. his friends recently gave him a t-shirt saying “Never Summer”.
Florian has developed some of the coolest chalets in the Swiss Alps through his real estate business Steiger & Cie. He is a co-founder of Leo Trippi and together with Auret he invested in and successfully exited Bramble Ski / Haute Montagne.
Auret van Zyl
As a multi-jurisdictional qualified lawyer, Auret had his eyes set on becoming a partner in a London based magic circle law firm when he decided that wasn’t the life path he wanted to take. After 2 months of riding his bike, reading some of the books he always wanted to read and failing to learn to play the guitar, he decided there was More 2 Life (which is today the name of his charitable foundation) …
In 2006, Auret founded his own M&A and corporate advisory business, TMA Partners, and started to venture into the entrepreneurial world, which led to him launching Leo Trippi together with Florian, shortly after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt during the financial crisis.
Despite living and loving the Swiss lifestyle, having grown up in South Africa, Africa will always remain in his blood.
Oliver Corkhill
Oli moved to Verbier when he was 16 and spent six winters skiing before launching his first travel business, Alpine Guru, in 2011 during what turned out to be his final season in the mountains. He boot-strapped the company while working offshore in the oil industry, managing to sell holidays to the Alps from boats in the likes of Shetlands, Angola and Suriname to name a few.
Alpine Guru was acquired by Leo Trippi in 2016 which was the first time Oli teamed up with Floiran and Auret. Within less than 12 months, Oli became the CEO of Leo Trippi and spearheaded its international expansion.
Together with Auret and Florian, Oli founded Viadi in late 2021 following a year of courting their first acquisition whilst navigating the pandemic. He travels regularly to our offices around the world and recently setup the latest Viadi outpost in Dubai, UAE.
Oli is also a regular commentator in the media having spoken at the inaugural Short Term Rentalz Summit on the M&A landscape across vacation and short term rentals as well as featuring in publications such as Bloomberg, CNN and Robb Report. He is regarded as one of the top travel agents globally and has been included in Condé Nast Traveler's Top Travel Specialists in 2021, 2022 and 2023.