Watch Jonny Wilkinson's live on-stage interview at HCM Summit 2024 here
Jonny Wilkinson is a health and wellbeing ambassador, business founder, public speaker, sustainability advocate, rugby pundit, coach and philanthropist.
Globally celebrated as one of the best rugby union players in the history of the game, Jonny was capped 91 times at international level for England. He featured in two British and Irish Lions tours and has been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame.
His outstanding service to the game was recognised with a CBE by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
Following his retirement from rugby in 2014, Jonny began utilising his insight and knowledge as a rugby pundit for ITV and Sky Sports. He also launched his own health drink brand, One Living.
Jonny openly explores the difficulties he faced during his career and also life to date – for example, the fear of failure.
More recently he's applied his personal experience and followed his passion to more deeply understand himself and his potential by launching a podcast and in a series of conversations with thought leaders and inspiring individuals across the globe, he advocates spiritual self-investigation leading to self-awareness and a realisation of what's available and possible for us all in life, often using sporting analogies to articulate and relate his message. He's also sought after as a motivational speaker.
A deeply passionate health and wellbeing advocate, Jonny initiated NSPiRED, a charitable foundation that provides mental, emotional support to school teachers and coaches to help inspire and empower them, as well as the younger generation that they work with on a daily basis.
He supports many other charities and is a brand ambassador for a number of companies.
Expertise: Mental health, physical activity and sustainability
Watch Dean Kowarski's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Dean Kowarski has built careers in both corporate finance and operational roles globally.
During his time in the corporate world, he experienced first-hand the benefits of exercise, recovery, mindfulness and nutritious foods as the essential, holistic formula for wellbeing.
Kowarski was appointed Group CEO of Virgin Active in March 2022 when the company refinanced and took over his hospitality business – The Real Foods Group – where he was founder and CEO.
Kowarski has also invested in the newly merged business.
Kowarski started the Real Foods Group in 2013 and acquired the Kauai business in 2015, growing the business from 100 to 204 locations with the Nu and Kauai brands.
Since its acquisition, healthy food brand Kauai has grown from 100 to 217 stores – many located within Virgin Active health clubs.
Kauai's purpose is to serve fresh, natural, delicious whole foods with plenty of fruit and veggies that support the immune system and improve overall health. Kauai's focus on food that's fresh and natural keeps them ahead of the global shift towards leading a healthier lifestyle.
Kowarski believes true wellness lives at the intersection of fitness and nutrition and that both are essential in guarding against preventable diseases and creating a healthier, happier society.
Through consciously designed spaces and experiences that blend movement, wellness, nourishment, work and social programming, Kowarski's vision is for Virgin Active to support every member's personal wellness journey.
New, holistic physical and emotional offerings such as SoundBath, Reformer Recovery, Hot Yoga, breathwork and Hyperice Recovery Zones radically transcend traditional fitness club propositions, and are transforming Virgin Active from being recognised as 'just a gym' to a leading global social wellness club.
Kowarski wants to inspire members and Kauai customers to immerse themselves in the full Virgin Active experience and draw insights from these multiple engagements to better understand individual member goals and progress and build increasingly personalised solutions to meet their needs.
Kowarski has a deep understanding of the modern wellness space and has been instrumental in merging Virgin Active Global with Kauai and NU Health Food Brands to form a Global Wellness Company fit for the future.
Expertise: Prevention and the intersection of fitness and nutrition
Watch Fahad Alhagbani's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Alhagbani is a 25-year veteran of the fitness industry. He has co-founded two of the largest fitness businesses in the Middle East.
After a successful IPO for the first business – Fitness Time – on the Saudi Stock Exchange in September 2018, Alhagbani moved on with his family to launch Armah Sports Company, where he serves as vice chair and CEO.
He reinvented fitness with the concept of 'Smart Clubs', which will transform the market, with plans to invest more than US$250m in the health and fitness sector over the next five years.
In November 2023 Alhagbani led the IPO for Armah Sports and shortly afterwards, he and his team won the IPO of the year award.
This set a precedent in the fitness industry of launching two different fitness chains and taking them public with only a five year window between the two IPOs.
Alhagbani has also been a member of REX (Roundtables for Executives) since 2017, a worldwide group of 17 fitness club owners/CEOs who meet regularly to exchange insights, critique business performance, and discuss future industry disruptions.
He also serves as board member at Al Hilal Football Club and is a Member of the Saudi Olympic Committee for Women.
Expertise: Health club entrepreneurship and leadership
Watch Eric Falardeau and Dominika Kampa's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Falardeau is the leader of McKinsey's fitness and wellness group globally and one of the leaders of McKinsey's Consumer Insights capability.
A partner in the company's Montreal office, he brings varied experience helping consumer-facing companies build strategies – including branding and innovation – or strengthen their value propositions to accelerate growth. This work includes delivering advanced analytics.
Falardeau has also built new businesses from scratch, acting as initial GM, both with clients and prior to McKinsey and has led enterprise-wide transformations across industries, including fitness and wellness, food, consumer goods and financial services.
Expertise: Building new businesses, developing growth strategies, delivering strategic and performance transformations and refreshing brand propositions
Watch PJ Nuitten's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Pieterjan (PJ) Nuitten has an MBA from IESE Business School and began his career at McKinsey, where he specialised in the consumer and retail industries.
Transitioning to Colruyt Group, Belgium's largest grocery retailer, he played a pivotal role in shaping strategic wellness initiatives before assuming the helm as CEO of Jims, a leading fitness chain in Belgium and Luxembourg which was acquired by Colruyt Group as part of its move to deliver an holistic wellness offering to its customers.
At Jims, Nuitten is leveraging the synergies between retail and fitness, as well as being part of the board of directors of the Health Vertical of Colruyt Group, working with health brands such as NewPharma.
Nuitten has been recognized as one of Belgium's "40 under 40" for his impactful contributions to leadership and society.
Expertise: Leveraging synergies between retail and fitness
Watch Baz Moffat's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Former Team GB rower Baz Moffat retired from elite sport to launch a successful international consulting and coaching business called The Well HQ.
She has a BSc in Sports Science from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in health-related behaviour change from the University of Bristol.
A prominent voice in the women's health movement, Moffatt specialises in the pelvic floor – a pivotal yet vastly under-appreciated nucleus in the female body.
The Well HQ is working with Adidas to deliver free training to support women around exercise and menstruation and with The Gym Group, which is investing in upskilling 200 trainers across the company in female health – specifically the menopause – so they can better serve mid-life women.
Once trained, they can then deliver pelvic floor workshops and female-specific fitness classes.
The Well HQ is also writing professional standards for women and girls for CIMSPA and providing training to trainers on the menopause as part of the organisation's Retrain to Retail initiative. This online learning is mapped to the latest standards.
A qualified personal trainer and holistic core restore coach, Moffatt has coached hundreds of women around the world to improve their pelvic health.
Expertise: Delivering transformational change in women's health
Watch Will Orr's live on-stage interview at HCM Summit 2024 here
Orr joined The Gym Group in September 2023. He was formerly MD of Times Media Limited, publisher of The Times and The Sunday Times.
Orr has also held MD roles at RAC and British Gas (Centrica Plc), developing and delivering sustainable customer growth strategies and operational excellence in people-intensive businesses.
He now proudly leads The Gym Group on its mission to break down barriers to fitness across its 240+ gyms nationwide and 900,000+ members, with its low-cost high-value offer.
Expertise: Driving growth in subscription-based businesses
Watch Phillip Mills' live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Mills is one of the most experienced players in the global fitness industry.
Throughout the 80s he transformed fitness for a generation of New Zealanders with the introduction of exercise to music and developed the Auckland gym established by his parents into a leading health club chain in New Zealand and Australia.
In 1990 he created Bodypump, a weight training class that became the world's most popular group workout. Since then he has built Les Mills International into the world's leading distributor of fitness classes, with 105,000 instructors in 21,700 gyms across 120 countries. Millions of people improve their health every day with Les Mills classes, both in gyms and online.
Mills has been a 40-year campaigner for the environment. Together with his wife Dr Jackie Mills, he wrote Fighting Globesity – A Guide to Personal Health and Global Sustainability (Random House). He founded The 100% Plan in 2008, which in 2011 became Pure Advantage; a charity run by New Zealand business leaders to fight climate change.
Through the Les Mills companies and personally he and Jackie have provided more than NZ$20 million dollars of support for a wide range of charitable causes and organisations, from environmental and social initiatives to sports groups. They are planting a million trees a year in Africa and have worked with UNICEF to provide water for communities in the poorest parts of the world.
He represented New Zealand in the 110m and 400m hurdles, reaching the Commonwealth Games finals in 1978 and achieving All-American status during a sports scholarship at UCLA.
AWARDS
• New Zealand Business Hall Of Fame, 2022
• World Fitness & Wellness Summit, Lifetime Achievement, 2020
• NZ Marketing Awards – Marketing Hall of Fame Award 2020
• Kea New Zealand, World Class New Zealander Award, 2009
• Ernst & Young, NZ Entrepreneur of the Year, 2004
Expertise: Transforming consumers' lives through exercise
Watch Justin Musgrove's live on-stage interview at HCM Summit 2024 here
With over 35 years' experience working across the leisure industry, Musgrove is a creative and strategic operator.
His 20 years overseeing the spa, wellness and leisure business at Center Parcs, led him to join The Bannatyne Group in 2007, where he acted as CEO between 2014 and 2019.
Musgrove oversaw a successful IPO Roadshow, with a book built for a £100m transaction, only for it to be curtailed by Brexit.
In September 2019, he joined the largest health club operator in the MENA region, Leejam Sports company as CEO. Leejam, a listed health club operator since its IPO in 2018, operates 135 health clubs under the Fitness Time brand.
In June 2021, Musgrove joined Kun Investment Holding in Saudi Arabia, as CEO of a new subsidiary, Kun Sports, responsible for the roll-out of a new budget gym chain, as well as its international luxury social wellness club business, CORE Life.
Musgrove returned to the UK in October 2023 to become CEO of Fitness First UK, charged with turning around the business.
Expertise: Health club operations, turnarounds, multicultural operations
Watch Belinda Steward's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Steward was appointed managing director of leisure, health and wellbeing at Places Leisure, part of the Places for People Group (PFP), in 2024.
She was previously MD at Derwent FM, which is also part of PFP.
Before joining PFP, Steward held a number of leadership roles, including for hospitality brands such as Greene King, Wyndham Hotel Group and Häagen-Dazs and has a history of embedding excellent customer service, building teams and cultural transformation.
Upon being appointed to her current role, Steward said: "There are many parallels between the leisure and hospitality industry, and I'm looking forward to exploring these synergies and strengthening our culture in a way that promotes outstanding customer service throughout and ultimately continues to put our customers at the heart of everything we do. Through doing this we help to create and support healthy communities."
Places Leisure manages 101 leisure facilities on behalf of its local authority partners, receiving 30 million visits a year and won the outstanding operator of the year award at the 2023 UK Active Awards.
Expertise: Public private partnerships
Watch Colin Waggett's live on-stage interview at HCM Summit 2024 here
Waggett has been CEO of Third Space, 'London's Luxury Health Clubs', since 2015, growing the brand from two clubs to 11, with plans in place to double the portfolio over the next three years following investment from KSL Capital Partners.
He has varied experience in the sector, having run a £500m company across over 20 countries and also set up a new concept from scratch. This has resulted in a deep understanding of how to take companies through the opportunities and challenges that are present at different stages of the growth cycle.
Skilled in leadership and strategy, corporate finance, operations and commercial management, Waggett is naturally numerate and analytical, having spent the early stages of his career in finance and equally adept at building teams and providing leadership and direction to turn plans and ideas into performance and profit.
Expertise: Scaling a luxury health club business
Watch Emlyn Brown's live on-stage interview at HCM Summit 2024 here
Brown started his career in the fitness industry with Holmes Place, holding director-level roles in Switzerland and Germany before moving into the wellness and hospitality sector in 1996.
Throughout his 22-year career, he has occupied various pivotal leadership roles, traversing the globe from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and the vibrant landscapes of China and helming group operations for a number of luxury spa and fitness companies
Prior to joining Accor, he was a senior lead at Resense Spas as global design director and MD of Asia, accountable for the growth of the Resense portfolio in China and Southeast Asia.
Brown was also wellness director at award-winning consultancy, GOCO Hospitality and has held senior positions at Six Senses Resorts & Spas where he was the regional director for Europe and later operations director for Asia.
Today he is responsible for driving the strategic development and design strategy for wellness at Accor, seamlessly integrating the ethos of wellbeing into every facet of the customer journey.
Expertise: Delivering health, fitness and wellness at the cutting edge
Watch Oliver Patrick's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Oliver Patrick is co-founder of fitness education business Future Practice, wellbeing director of medical business Latus Health and clinical director of luxury hotel business, Pillar Wellbeing.
A physiologist and health assessment expert, focussed on the measurable health and performance outputs of lifestyle, he consults on wellbeing strategy directly with organisations globally, including Nike, League Managers' Association, PureGym and UK Coaching.
In his earlier career Patrick formed the largest team of physiologists and nutritionists in the UK as head of physiology at Nuffield Health, before co-founding Viavi, the world's most advanced health assessment clinic on London's Harley Street.
At Nuffield, Patrick designed and delivered some of the largest corporate wellbeing initiatives across the UK.
He is host of the popular Energy Equation Podcast from High Performance, where he uses advanced heart rate variability technology to run personalised stress, sleep, and fitness assessments on well-known guests.
Expertise: Designing life-changing wellness interventions
Watch Keith Burnet's live presentation at HCM Summit 2024 here
Keith is co-founder of The Alchemist & Adventurer, who provide business and leadership consultancy services to ignite individual, team and organisational growth by helping people to maximise their impact and 'do life' better through transformative experiences.
They combine the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions of peak human impact to inspire and empower clients to live more fulfilling and adventurous lives for business growth and a better world.
As an Adventurer Burnet is crazy about exploring our planet through multi-day endurance experiences which include: The Talisker Atlantic Rowing Challenge, Trans America Bike Race and Marathon des Sables.
In 2024, he is kayaking the Yukon River with his son in the Yukon1000.
Prior to co-founding The Alchemist & Adventurer, Keith was CEO-Global Markets at Les Mills, overseeing the growth and expansion of the world's leading provider of group fitness programme. He led the strategy, sales operations and partnerships across the Americas, Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and launched and scaled new products and services, such as Les Mills+ and SmartTech.
At Hilton Worldwide he was responsible for a global network of over 400 spas and grew the LivingWell Health Club chain and sold the business to Bannatyne Fitness.
He has a track record in people leadership, team and culture building, cultivating sales success and strategy. He loves collaborating with talented people who have a shared vision of making the world a healthier and happier place.
Expertise: People leadership, team and culture building
Andrew Gibson is an advisor and strategist for health clubs, resorts, wellness communities, real estate and hospitality. He is based in Sweden.
Gibson completed a BA in recreation management and environmental conservation, specialising in exercise physiology, commencing his career at a time when the private health club market was starting to emerge.
He opened a hotel fitness club in the UK before moving to the Middle East where he managed a number of health clubs, country clubs and resorts.
When the industry embraced spa he went on to become part of the senior management teams that have created iconic hotel spa and wellness brands, such as Six Senses, Mandarin Oriental, Raffles, Fairmont, Pullman, Sofitel and MGallery.
He also spent time on the senior team at Sensei, a wellness retreat in Lanai, Hawaii, owned by Oracle founder, Larry Ellison.
Over the last 30 years Gibson has evolved from fitness to spa and then to wellness, creating or operating global brands in over 70 countries.
As a global citizen he has lived in the USA, the Middle East, Asia and Europe and has been a prominent figure through his voluntary work in industry associations and in academic advisory positions.
He was a founder member and board director of the Global Wellness Institute and chair of the Wellness Tourism Association and remains a serving judge for the World Spa and Wellness Awards and chair of the Wellness Hall of Fame (wellHOF).
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