Lee McAteer
Lee McAteer is a British entrepreneur and businessman known for co-founding Invasion Camp Group and its subsidiaries, where he is the CEO.
Early life and education
McAteer was born in 1983 on the Wirral. He studied law at University of Leeds where he was the president of the University Law Society. While attending Leeds, McAteer met Nick Steiert with whom he later founded Invasion Camp Group after both men discovered they were frustrated with student tour and travel operators.
Career
In 2004, while studying at university, McAteer worked at a summer camp in America for nine weeks through Camp America. When the trip came to an end the payment he received didn't cover the fees he was charged. The following year, he began organising similar trips to a camp in Massachusetts and eventually, trips for Leeds University Law Society. After graduating in 2007, he worked as a production editor for the automotive magazine Max Power. In 2010, McAteer re-purposed a loan that was supposed to fund his legal career to start AmeriCamp and eventually the Invasion Camp Group.
Invasion Camp Group runs the subsidiaries that include, AmeriCamp, Camp Thailand, Camp South Africa, AusJob and Camp.co.uk, and organises trips abroad for nearly 20,000 people a year. While abroad, travelers work at camps where they teach English, create wildlife refugees, work as camp counselors or teach other skills. The company has not taken on any outside investments.
In May 2017, McAteer received international attention for turning his company's headquarters into a ball pit for the day. In August 2017, he was named an honorary member of the Tranmere Rovers F.C.