Alexa’s background is elite sport and exercise science. Following 10 years of academy football including 2 years at the Arsenal Ladies Academy Alexa moved to America and spent 4 years as a NCAA division 1 student athlete.

Alexa is the Wellbeing Performance Manager for Wellonomics, a company that is driving wellbeing for every body.

Alexa’s background is elite sport and exercise science. Following 10 years of academy football including 2 years at the Arsenal Ladies Academy Alexa moved to America and spent 4 years as a NCAA division 1 student athlete.

Alexa graduated with an honours degree in Exercise Science from East Tennessee State University, a college that is widely known as US olympic training site and a centre of excellence for sports science and coach education.

Following graduation Alexa qualified as a personal trainer and a certified strength and conditioning specialist and joined the Training Shed team. Alexa has progressed from intern to coach to lead coach in her 7 years with the Training Shed as well as playing a key roles in driving the coach education and leading the Wellbeing Score™ conversation.

Now as the Training Shed brand merges with Wellonomics, Alexa moves into the role of Wellbeing Performance Manager to continue the wellbeing conversation, build the community of wellbeing experts and support clients in implementing data driven wellbeing solutions.

Clayton Herbert is a brand strategist and Co-Founder of Peripheral, a strategic growth and consultancy group for the wellness industry.

He’s spent the past 19 years in a variety of senior commercial, partnership and marketing roles across the Health, Fitness and Wellness sectors, both in the UK and internationally for leading organisations.

He’s passionate about helping people and brands identify and amplify their point of difference and firmly believes that differentiation is the single most important factor to create competitive advantage and long-term sustainable growth.

Rachel Rinkcavage brings over 25 years of experience in the leisure industry to her role as Head of Brand and Marketing at BPL. Throughout her career, she has been driven by a deep passion for understanding customers and creating bold, innovative strategies that push boundaries and engage new audiences.

Rachel has played a pivotal role in the success of Your Space, BPL’s fitness brand, where data-driven insights have transformed the way the organisation connects with its members. By identifying who their customers are and why they choose Your Space, Rachel has led initiatives to design personalised persona journeys, enhance staff training, and shape product and service offerings that align with customer expectations.

Her vision is clear: to build strong, lasting relationships where members not only remain engaged but also become advocates for the brand. Rachel continues to champion fresh, customer-focused approaches to ensure Your Space stays relevant and at the forefront of the leisure industry.

Sarah Townend is Marketing & Experience Director for Snap Fitness EMEA, where she leads brand, marketing, and member experience strategy across one of the world’s fastest-growing fitness franchises. With a career spanning global sport, hospitality, and high-growth consumer brands, Sarah brings a sharp commercial mindset alongside a deep understanding of how to build brands people genuinely connect with.

At Snap Fitness, she has played a pivotal in repositioning the brand around member experience and emotional connection, helping to drive franchise growth, strengthen community engagement, and deliver award-winning innovation across the network. Her work focuses on the intersection of brand, customer insight, and operational excellence, ensuring both members and franchisees succeed.

Sarah is a strong advocate for creating experiences that go beyond the product; ones that foster loyalty, community, and long-term brand value.

Graeme is the global head of Bird & Bird's Retail and Consumer sector team as well as the co-head of the international franchise team. Graeme and his team support consumer businesses across hospitality, leisure, fitness and wellness - primarily providing the legal advice and support required by businesses to implement successful growth strategies. Graeme and his team provide advice across brand protection, franchising, corporate growth and investment readiness, the procurement, use and integration of technology, data privacy, AI, employment, commercial property and consumer law.

Rebecca Douglas is an award-winning marketing, content, and innovation specialist with more than 25 years’ experience working alongside some of the world’s most recognised and loved brands. Throughout her career, she has built a reputation for combining strategic thinking with creativity, helping businesses connect more meaningfully with people, communities, and culture.

As part of The Well Crowd, Rebecca brings her passion for storytelling, brand building, and human connection into a collaborative workspace environment designed to inspire fresh thinking and purposeful business growth. She thrives on bringing people together, creating opportunities for collaboration, and challenging conventional ideas.

Rebecca’s experience spans marketing strategy, content development, partnership building, innovation, and audience engagement. Her approach is rooted in curiosity and a belief that the best ideas often come from unexpected conversations and diverse perspectives. Known for thinking differently and asking better questions, she enjoys helping brands and individuals uncover more authentic, impactful ways to communicate and grow.

Julie Allen or Jules as most know her, is driven and dedicated to improving the customer experience. With 20 years’ industry experience in both operations and as a supplier, Jules passion for creating meaningful and memorable experiences that lead to healthier and happier communities is at the heart of everything she does.

Prior to joining Active Insight as Business Development Director, Jules started her career as a receptionist before progressing in various roles including Sales and Marketing before moving onto Front of House and Customer Service Manager. With a desire to support a range of operators develop and drive their customer experience strategy, Jules joined TRP (now Fitronics). This combined experience of operations and consultancy has shaped Jules’ approach and commitment to sharing insight and customer experience knowledge to drive change within the industry. A Spin and Zumba instructor – you’ll find Jules in a group exercise studio somewhere!

As Director of Client Success at Proinsight, Chloe is responsible for supporting over 200 clients across a wide range of sectors, helping them enhance and transform their customer experience strategies. She works closely with senior stakeholders to design and implement tailored insight programmes that align with their strategic goals and deliver measurable impact. By combining data-driven analysis with a deep understanding of client objectives, Chloe ensures that each programme provides meaningful, actionable insights that drive performance, strengthen customer relationships, and support long-term business growth

Dr Glenda Rivoallan is a resilience expert, positive psychology specialist and founder of We Talk Wellbeing and Fourthzone, a female-only premium luxury wellbeing club launching in Jersey in June 2026. Known for her energetic, relatable, and deeply human approach, Glenda has become a leading voice in wellbeing, behaviour change, and emotional resilience across the fitness, education, and corporate sectors.

With a background spanning health coaching, leadership development, and wellbeing education, Glenda is passionate about helping people move beyond burnout, self-doubt, and “all-or-nothing” thinking. Her work blends evidence-based psychology with practical, real-world strategies that empower individuals and teams to build confidence, adaptability, and sustainable wellbeing habits.

Glenda is the creator of the Resilient as Fudge framework, a refreshingly honest approach to resilience that encourages people to embrace imperfection while developing emotional strength and self-belief. She is also the lead developer of innovative health and wellbeing coaching qualifications designed to shape the future of holistic coaching practice.

An engaging keynote speaker and facilitator, Glenda is recognised for delivering thought-provoking sessions filled with humour, warmth, and actionable insight. Her mission is simple: to help people thrive, not just survive, in work and life.

Lesley Aitken is a sales and marketing specialist and speaker working across the leisure, fitness and customer experience sectors, supporting brands including Xn Leisure, TRP and CoursePro.

With a background in marketing strategy, successful pre-sales support and membership sales development, Lesley helps organisations turn complex systems and operational challenges into clear, commercially focused messaging that customers connect with.

Her work includes campaign strategy, sales enablement, LinkedIn content, webinars, landing pages, customer storytelling, product positioning and event marketing. Lesley also supports the training and development of membership sales teams, helping improve sales confidence, customer conversations, lead handling and sales processes within busy operational environments.

Across Xn Leisure, Lesley supports marketing around leisure management systems, ticketing, managed direct debits and operational control. With TRP, the focus centres on customer engagement and retention. For CoursePro, much of the work highlights swim school growth, automation and reducing administration for operators.

Known for combining commercial thinking with a passionate and practical approach, Lesley focuses on creating sales and marketing strategies that feel human, relevant and commercially effective.

KJ brings over 18 years of experience in the health and fitness industry, combining hands-on club leadership with strategic consultancy to help aquatic and fitness businesses grow and maximise revenue. As Head of Growth and Performance at 3-1-5 Health Club, she works actively within the business to drive commercial success across all key revenue streams.

Her role focuses on developing and implementing strategies that increase membership sales, grow fitness revenue, expand swim school programmes, and maximise secondary spend. KJ specialises in improving conversion, identifying new income opportunities, and building high-performing sales cultures within teams.

Alongside her work in-club, KJ is the founder of Elevate Consultants, where she supports swim schools, gyms, and fitness studios to strengthen their commercial performance. Through consultancy, she helps operators optimise pricing, improve sales processes, and unlock untapped revenue streams to drive sustainable growth.

Because she remains actively responsible for growth and performance within a thriving club environment, KJ brings practical, real-world insight to the businesses she works with. Her focus is on turning growth strategies into clear, actionable steps that deliver measurable results.

Freya is the Head of Padel for Powerleague, leading the development and launch of the Powerleague Padel concept. With 42 courts across 4 clubs, Powerleague is rapidly expanding its offering, and Freya is spearheading this growth. With over 12 years in the health and fitness industry, Freya brings a wealth of expertise across multiple fast-growing leisure businesses.

Jeevan Gill is an entrepreneur and early leader in the UK’s fast growing padel industry, and a core member of the founding team at Padelstars. Joining the business in 2023 as its first team member, she partnered closely with the founders at a time when the company had no venues or clubs, playing a hands on role in shaping both its strategy and execution from the ground up.

Alongside her work in padel, Jeevan is a business owner with a background spanning hospitality and the design and build space. She brings a unique ability to combine years of experience across these sectors to scale physical, community-driven environments an approach that has been central to Padelstars’ rapid growth.

Since then, she has been instrumental in scaling Padelstars into one of the most exciting operators in the space, helping grow the business to 12 venues and a rapidly expanding community of players. Her work spans commercial development, operations, and building the foundations of a scalable padel ecosystem in the UK.

Padelstars’ momentum has been recognised nationally, earning a place on The Times 100 “Ones to Watch” list for 2025. With ambitious plans to reach 17 venues and over 80 courts by the end of the year, Jeevan continues to play a key role in driving that growth.

Passionate about making padel accessible and mainstream, Jeevan brings a builder’s mindset and first-hand experience of scaling a sport from grassroots to high growth business.

Michael is a distinguished Pilates teacher and a veteran in group fitness, with over 45 years of experience. His journey began at the London School of Contemporary Dance, leading him to open his own Body Control Studios in Covent Garden, London. He later managed the Pilates studio at the Houston Ballet Company in Texas, training with renowned experts across the USA.

After a tenure in the USA, including work at the Voight Centre in LA and teaching at several notable studios like Winsor Pilates, Michael returned to Europe. He founded the Pilates Institute UK, ran it until 2008, and then established Michael King Pilates, now part of My Academy.pro. His programs, known for their innovative approach, are taught in over 30 countries.

Recently, Michael has focused on developing group reformer classes, aiming to make Pilates more accessible and engaging. His dedication to blending traditional techniques with new formats continues to influence the fitness world globally.

Experienced sales leader and strategic executive with a track record of driving growth and maximising profitability. Currently serving as the Director of Sales at Balanced Body, the global leader in Pilates equipment and education, Bill brings a wealth of expertise in international sales, strategic partnerships and global channel management. With a background in guiding high-performing teams and developing robust sales strategies, Bill’s leadership style combines consultative selling, team-building, and a commitment to raising standards of excellence.

Lauren is a passionate advocate for getting young people moving and making sure they feel seen, heard, and included in the world of health and fitness. As Head of Health and Wellbeing with over 10 years of experience in the Wellbeing and Leisure sectors, she brings a unique blend of strategic insight and genuine care for community wellbeing.

Her work goes beyond gym refurbishments and business development, though she’s led many successful projects in those areas. What drives Lauren is the opportunity to reshape how we design fitness spaces and programs to truly engage young people, meet them where they are, and spark a lifelong love of movement. She’s developed a wide range of innovative class concepts with youth at the heart, rooted in the belief that healthy habits start early, and that access, fun, and belonging are key.

Lauren is committed to reducing health inequalities and believes every young person deserves access to safe, supportive, and inspiring spaces to be active, regardless of their background or circumstance. Her approach centres inclusion, and she’s currently focused on adapting a referral program to include GLP-1 support while also reaching underserved communities through initiatives like NHS Health Checks, wellbeing seminars, and post-menopausal heart health programs.

When Lauren speaks on panels, she brings not just expertise but a deep passion for creating a more inclusive, energetic, and youth-friendly fitness culture. Her goal is to help reimagine what physical activity looks like for young people today and ensure they have every opportunity to move, thrive, and feel part of something bigger.

Lucy Findlay-Beale is Event Director of Elevate and has been part of the event since its launch, playing a key role in its growth and evolution over the past decade.

Before moving into event leadership, Lucy worked within the fitness and leisure sector as an operator, giving her first-hand experience of the challenges and opportunities facing facilities, teams and customers. This operational background, combined with years of working closely with suppliers, operators, governing bodies, educators and healthcare professionals, has given her a unique perspective on the industry's development.

Today, Lucy leads the strategic direction of Elevate, curating content, partnerships and industry engagement that bring together leaders from across the physical activity, fitness and sports therapy sectors. She is a passionate advocate for collaboration and innovation, believing that meaningful progress is achieved when organisations work together to improve health outcomes and create more active communities.

Rose Gibson is an entrepreneur, speaker and Director of the national brand BabyBeats. She is also an Apple chart topping podcast host of I'm Fine (But...) and Amazon best selling author of I'm Fine. The Truth About Becoming A Mum (That No One Warns You About). With over 20 years of experience, Rose has seen first hand how traditional business models rely on long hours, constant availability and unsustainable growth, particularly impacting women navigating motherhood. After having three children, she rebuilt her own business from a time for money model into a flexible structure that allows her to work less while earning more. Rose is known for her direct, no nonsense approach, challenging outdated definitions of success and helping women build businesses that align with real life, not compete with it. Her work sits at the intersection of business, identity and sustainability.

Rose has spoken on stages including Ideas Fest, Female Boss Powerlist, The Children’s Activity Business Club and the Class Business Awards and has been featured on the BBC, Women's Health, Prima, Stylist Magazine and London Daily News. Her core message is simple: motherhood doesn’t limit your potential but the wrong business model will.

Dr Marlize De Vivo is an internationally recognised expert in perinatal physical activity and women’s health. With a background in clinical exercise, sport science and rehabilitation, she works to improve how women are supported to be active before, during and after pregnancy.

Her contribution to the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines provided the foundation for much of the work that followed, including translating pregnancy and postnatal physical activity guidance into professional education, sector standards, screening tools and service models.

She is CEO and Co-Founder of the Active Pregnancy Foundation, which turns evidence and lived experience into resources, training and partnerships that help remove barriers to activity across the childbearing years. She is also leading the development of a UK perinatal exercise specialism, designed to strengthen workforce capability and raise standards for professionals supporting women.

Marlize is Principal Research Fellow at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, and Director of the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine in Sheffield, a London 2012 Olympic legacy programme established to improve health and wellbeing through sport, exercise and physical activity.

At Elevate, Marlize will focus on why supporting women through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood matters for the future of fitness, leisure, sport and public health.

We believe that both babywearing and movement do magical things to enhance your experience as a parent — combining them both is the Carifit way.

Carifit is the brainchild of Vern Hill, an ante and post-natal fitness expert and father of two. Vern’s passionate about the benefits that babywearing can bring to parents and their children. Supported by a team of industry professionals, Carifit has created a game-changing range of carriers, designed to help you and your baby bond through movement.

Carifit is much more than a carrier, though. It’s also a powerful, supportive app. It’s a whole community of likeminded individuals. It’s experts who can answer your questions and support you emotionally and physically. You can use the app for on-demand workouts, join in-person classes, be part of a global community, and find wellbeing support whenever you need it.

Having held senior manager positions at both David Lloyd and GLL, out of frustration with CX programmes on the market David founded Proinsight and is the business’ managing director. David’s passion, along with his twin boys, is customer experience, having built over 100 customer experience programmes for clients like Asda, Hollywood Bowl & Vision Express. David is the pioneer of the Happiness Performance Index^™ and after 3 years in the sandbox he’s ready to share the index!

Emma has over 20 years’ experience in the hospitality and travel industry. She completed her MBA at Aston Business School with Distinction, specialising in Strategic Account Management.

Emma joined Rapport in 2019, leading regional operations on one of our largest contracts. Prior to this, Emma worked as Head of Operations for a global travel company, with a focus on the European market. Emma’s experience covers a vast array of differing operations including restaurants and bars, hotels and resorts, day visitor attractions, wedding and events venues, retail, and corporate space.

In 2022, Emma joined the Rapport head office team as the Head of Business Excellence. In this role, Emma enhances customer excellence by finding innovative solutions, and support’s Rapport’s international clients.

Adam is a hospitality leader with more than 25 years of experience in one of the most competitive customer-focused industries. Having spent 15 years with ASK Italian before joining Brava Hospitality, Adam has built a career around creating exceptional guest experiences and leading high-performing teams.

Today, as Group Operations Director for Brava Hospitality, Adam oversees almost 100 restaurants across a portfolio of well-known brands, including the revitalised Prezzo Italian, the return of Jamie’s Italian to the UK market, and Maslows restaurants.

Throughout his career, Adam has been passionate about the link between culture, team engagement and customer experience. He believes that outstanding guest experiences are created by motivated teams who feel connected to a clear purpose, and his work focuses on building cultures that inspire people to deliver hospitality at its very best.

Julie Allen or Jules as most know her, is driven and dedicated to improving the customer experience. With 20 years’ industry experience in both operations and as a supplier, Jules passion for creating meaningful and memorable experiences that lead to healthier and happier communities is at the heart of everything she does.

Prior to joining Active Insight as Business Development Director, Jules started her career as a receptionist before progressing in various roles including Sales and Marketing before moving onto Front of House and Customer Service Manager. With a desire to support a range of operators develop and drive their customer experience strategy, Jules joined TRP (now Fitronics). This combined experience of operations and consultancy has shaped Jules’ approach and commitment to sharing insight and customer experience knowledge to drive change within the industry. A Spin and Zumba instructor – you’ll find Jules in a group exercise studio somewhere!

Libby Kirkley Bryan is an executive and team coach working with senior leaders and organisations operating in complex, high‑pressure environments. With over 20 years’ experience across the public and private sectors, Libby brings deep expertise in service transformation, organisation‑wide change, and system performance. Her work focuses on helping leaders find clarity in complexity, strengthen relationships, and move insight into deliberate, meaningful action when the consequences matter.

Libby’s work is informed by systemic and psychological approaches, alongside a strong understanding of how context, culture, power, and pressure influence behaviour and decision‑making. She works with leaders and teams to surface what is often hidden or unspoken, supporting clearer thinking, stronger relational awareness, and more intentional leadership. This enables individuals and teams to collaborate more effectively and respond wisely under sustained pressure.

Libby is a founding member and facilitator of The Inspirational Leader programme. She is also the creator of Relational Trust Dynamics™, a framework that helps leaders understand how trust is formed, strained, and repaired in real organisational conditions. This work underpins her approach to executive coaching, team development, and sustainable organisational change.

With over 15 years of experience in adult education and management, Carl has established a strong reputation for driving quality, innovation, and operational excellence within the health and fitness education sector. As Operations Director at Future Fit Training, he leads strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing learner experiences, optimising delivery, and ensuring consistently high standards across the organisation.

Carl’s professional background spans sports therapy, community health, and physical activity promotion for special population groups. With over two decades of sector experience, he brings a unique, multidisciplinary perspective that informs his leadership and contributes to impactful, learner-centered outcomes. His expertise is applied across a broad range of initiatives, reinforcing his commitment to improving education and well-being across diverse communities.

With over 15 years’ experience of leading teams that support practitioners and employers across the sport and physical activity sector, Clare is focused on enabling organisations large and small to develop and retain a skilled workforce and supporting local areas to collaborate, bringing together employers, education providers and other strategic bodies to ensure that the workforce meets the needs of the area. Clare previously worked across a range of leisure operators and for RLSS UK.

Nick is a Chartered Senior Practitioner, Founder of The National Register of Parkinson's Specialist Personal Trainers, Exercise Referral Practitioner and Parkinson's Exercise Specialist. He has over 30 years’ experience in the industry as a Personal Trainer and business owner.

He created 4D Fitness in 1998 and since then he and his team have been delivering leading edge health and fitness solutions across the full spectrum of the population. He now works with some of the UK’s most influential people in Government, business and the Civil Service.

Nick has had Multiple Sclerosis since 2006. This has created a very personal motivation to find the best solutions available to help people with medical conditions. He runs an online clinic for people with MS, Parkinson’s or Chronic Fatigue, helping them to implement an evidence-based Marginal Gains approach, alongside their medical treatment.

He has been working with people living with Parkinson’s for over 20 years. In 2022 he and his team launched 4D Life, an online programme for people with Parkinson's, covering 4 Dimensions of Movement, Nutrition, Function and Lifestyle. The team includes a Highly Specialised Neurological Physiotherapist, Registered Dietitian and experienced Personal Trainers.

He is a strong advocate of specialised personal training. In 2025 the team launched the National Register of Parkinson's Specialist Personal Trainers, supported by Parkinson's UK, CIMSPA, Cure Parkinson's and Fitpro. The Register recruits, trains and monitors Parkinson's Specialist Trainers across the UK, and connects them with their local Parkinson's community.

Lewis Baker is a Personal Trainer, biomechanics practitioner, and co‑founder of Wellness Warriors, a sober running community he fronts alongside Charmain. After a 25‑year battle with alcoholism and being told he had two months to live if he didn’t stop drinking, Lewis rebuilt his life through movement. A spontaneous application to the London Marathon — accepted on the first attempt — became the moment he realised how powerfully exercise can reshape the recovering brain. From that turning point, he founded the Phoenix Lifestyle Foundation, a charity dedicated to making fitness, recovery, and wellbeing accessible to people who need it most.

With over a decade of PT experience, Lewis now designs inclusive coaching systems for people who’ve historically been excluded from mainstream fitness — especially those in addiction recovery. His work is driven by a core belief: the neurological changes triggered by exercise can spark healing, rebuild identity, and open the door back into meaningful work and community life.

Lewis co-fronts Wellness Warriors, the South UK’s first sober running club, and leads Brothers in Arms, a men’s exercise and social group focused on connection, confidence, and belonging. Across every project, Lewis champions one message: you can use the body to improve the mind — and movement can be the catalyst that transforms a life.

Minal drives partnership growth and workforce development across the Sport and Physical Activity sector, uniting employers, education providers and training organisations to deliver skills strategies with meaningful commercial and community impact. She is passionate about building an inclusive, future ready workforce that reflects and serves diverse communities which remove barriers to participation and unlock opportunities for everyone to engage and thrive.

Rebecca Douglas is an award-winning marketing, content, and innovation specialist with more than 25 years’ experience working alongside some of the world’s most recognised and loved brands. Throughout her career, she has built a reputation for combining strategic thinking with creativity, helping businesses connect more meaningfully with people, communities, and culture.

As part of The Well Crowd, Rebecca brings her passion for storytelling, brand building, and human connection into a collaborative workspace environment designed to inspire fresh thinking and purposeful business growth. She thrives on bringing people together, creating opportunities for collaboration, and challenging conventional ideas.

Rebecca’s experience spans marketing strategy, content development, partnership building, innovation, and audience engagement. Her approach is rooted in curiosity and a belief that the best ideas often come from unexpected conversations and diverse perspectives. Known for thinking differently and asking better questions, she enjoys helping brands and individuals uncover more authentic, impactful ways to communicate and grow.

Natalie Shears is the Founder & CEO of The Well Crowd, a purpose-led platform dedicated to raising standards and bringing greater clarity, credibility, and connection to the workplace wellbeing sector.

With more than 25 years of international business leadership experience, Natalie’s career has spanned C-suite consulting, global commercial leadership, and serving as CEO of a London based mental health charity. She combines strategic commercial expertise with a long-standing passion for evidence-based wellbeing and human performance.

Holding a BSc (Hons) in Nutrition Science, Natalie is particularly interested in the science of stress resilience, workplace culture, and the role wellbeing plays in helping people and organisations thrive. Through The Well Crowd, she is building a trusted ecosystem that connects businesses with high-quality workplace wellbeing providers, research, insights, and industry collaboration.

Keshav Agarwal is Head of UKI Partnerships at Wellhub, having joined as the business landed its first wave of major UK enterprise clients including Tesco and Sainsbury's, and previously served as Global Head of Digital Partnerships.

He now leads Wellhub's partner ecosystem across the UK & Ireland, working with some of the largest employers and operators in the region.

Ryan Josephs has spent his career helping people get more from their health and wellbeing, initially as a Sports Scientist optimising human performance in professional Rugby, then as a Lecturer in higher education, and now as the person behind Heka's partnership network.

Over the past six years, Ryan has built Heka's partnerships function from the ground up, connecting the platform with some of the UK's most exciting health and wellbeing brands. That work has helped shape a network of over 5,000 benefits spanning mental health support, gym memberships, learning and development, and financial wellbeing, giving employees genuinely personalised access to the things that matter most to them.

Rooted in hands-on experience as a coach and practitioner, Ryan brings a perspective to employee benefits that goes beyond the commercials. He understands what it actually takes to support people in living healthier, happier lives, and he channels that into every partnership Heka builds.

At Elevate, Ryan will be joining the panel to share what he has learned at the intersection of partnerships, wellbeing, and the future of employee benefits.

Dr Lou Atkinson is a behavioural scientist, applied researcher, educator and exercise professional, with a career spanning over 25 years across Public Health, Fitness, Academia, and MedTech. Her research and practice focus on the psychosocial determinants of health behaviours and developing interventions to reduce disease burden and address health inequalities. She has dedicated her career to building, disseminating and applying the scientific and translational evidence needed to create real-world change in physical activity, obesity, chronic conditions and women's health. Lou co-founded RISE, a non-profit which conducts research to explore the real experience of people working in the fitness industry, with the ambition for fitness to become a world leading sector in diversity, equality and inclusion.

Jo Major is an inclusive recruitment specialist, trainer and consultant with over 25 years’ experience across recruitment, talent acquisition and learning and development.

As the founder of Diversity in Recruitment and a delivery partner for Level Equals, Jo supports organisations to build fairer, more inclusive and more accessible hiring practices. Her work helps recruiters, hiring managers and leadership teams understand how bias, barriers and outdated recruitment habits can impact who gets hired, who feels welcome and who is able to perform at their best during the hiring process.

Jo brings a practical, straight-talking and human approach to inclusion. She works with organisations across sport, leisure, public sector, charity, education and recruitment, helping them move beyond good intentions and build recruitment processes that are clearer, more consistent and more defensible.

A seasoned professional in the health and fitness industry, Heloise's experience lies within leadership, consulting, and coaching. After transitioning from Wealth Management in 2014, and as a result of her passion for fitness and feeling that the UK market was lacking, she co-launched and was COO and MD of Core Collective, a boutique gym that had 3 sites in London, prior to its inception by 1Rebel.

Known for her strategic insight and operational expertise, she advises emerging gyms and studios from concept to launch and is now COO for The Method, a global brand redefining fitness, health and wellbeing. A certified Personal Trainer and class coach, she is passionate about building strong teams, shaping standout brands, and driving success across the wellbeing sector.

As a result of her journey so far, a love of the industry and a desire to highlight its merits, alongside a belief that there is a real need for systematic change, Jobs In. Fitness was formed - a specialist recruitment and consulting agency helping people thrive in fitness careers and businesses build high-performing teams.

A lover of all competitive sports and always looking for the next challenge, Heloise regularly competes in events, from Ironmans to Functional Fitness.

Ciara Grogan is Head of Partnerships at Future Coach, responsible for building and sustaining the relationships with national governing bodies and sport organisations that sit at the heart of Future Coach's work. She brings a rich cross-sector perspective shaped by previous roles at Sport England, VIY, Women in Sport and 'Think Active' Active Partnership, experience that brings a unique connection between community sport development, equity and inclusion and local workforce transformation. Ciara is known for her ability to understand the pressures and ambitions of partner organisations and to design engagement that creates genuine mutual value. She is the connective tissue between Future Coach's capability and the sector's need.

Maddie is the Recruitment Director at Love Recruitment leading the wonderful team through fantastic service and delivery.

Maddie is a fitness and leisure industry recruitment expert. Maddie built this expertise from recruiting in the UK plus having opened and managed Love Recruitment Australia previously. Previous to this, Maddie worked extensively in fitness, sales and hospitality.

Maddie works with our recruiters, fitness businesses of all sizes and a wide range of candidates every day, bringing first hand, clear and concise knowledge and experience.

James is Head of Partnership at Xplor Fitness & Leisure He’s focused on helping our customers deliver better member experiences through a joined-up ecosystem of integrations with strategically selected partners.

With a career in the industry spanning 35 years, James held pretty much every hands-on role operator side – from cleaner to gym manager – before moving supplier side, with a focus on software. Having worked with many of the biggest names in fitness, he brings a wealth of practical and strategic knowledge to drive innovation and make life simpler for our customers and their members.

Away from work, James remains fully emerged in the fitness world. Always up for a challenge, James most recently took on an epic charity adventure – swimming the English Channel – a 21-mile open water swim.

Alice Hulley is an experienced leader in the leisure and hospitality sector, with a background in operations, customer service, and team development. Having held senior roles including Group Product Director and Leisure Director at the Waterside Hotel & Leisure Club, she has worked across a range of areas including member experience, project delivery, and multi-site operations.

Alice is passionate about creating welcoming environments for both members and teams, with a practical approach to leadership and service. She brings valuable industry insight and hands-on experience to conversations around customer engagement, operational development, and the evolving leisure landscape.

Duncan is the Founder CEO of South Downs Leisure setting the Charity up in 2015. Remaining honest to the triple bottom line of People, Planet, Profit, his team have successfully grown the company by more than 300% in 5 years to 12 sites and now have a turnover of approx £20m. Duncan has worked in Leisure for over 35 years and been involved in many building projects, and development of what we call Gym memberships. He went to Malaysia in 2000 on an 8 week scholarship working at the Commonwealth Games Complex in Kuala Lumpa amongst many other leisure and hotel resorts. His passion outside leisure is a new parkrun every Saturday!

Wayne Heath is the Founder & CEO of ClubRight, a leading software solution designed to help gyms and clubs operate more efficiently and scale successfully.

With firsthand experience as a former gym owner, Wayne deeply understands the daily challenges faced by fitness businesses, from managing memberships to controlling fluctuating overheads. His passion for solving these challenges led him to develop ClubRight, a platform that not only streamlines operations but also supports long-term growth.

Wayne is a firm believer that great technology should be both powerful and accessible. That’s why affordability remains a core principle of ClubRight, ensuring that businesses of all sizes can benefit from innovative tools without breaking the budget.

With a wealth of industry knowledge and a no-nonsense approach, Wayne continues to empower fitness entrepreneurs with the insights and solutions they need to thrive in an ever-evolving market.

David Avgi is a fintech entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in online payments, eCommerce, and financial services. He is the Founder and CEO of UNIPaaS, a fast-growing startup delivering Embedded Finance solutions tailored for B2B SaaS platforms. UNIPaaS empowers platforms to take full control of their payment experience, fund flows, and monetisation strategies.

Prior to founding UNIPaaS, David was the Co-Founder and CEO of SafeCharge International Group, a global payment processing leader. Under his leadership, SafeCharge went public on the London Stock Exchange in 2014 and was acquired by Nuvei in 2019 for $890 million.

David is passionate about building transformative fintech solutions and collaborating with top talent to shape the future of the industry.

Paul has been working supplier-side Health and Fitness facilities for over 20 years, always focusing on customers, their journeys and their member journeys. He was instrumental in rolling out online membership sales to the industry at large back in 2005, servicing such industry giants as The Gym Group, JD Gyms, Places Leisure and in addition thousands of chain business, corporate, and independent operators. He carries a deep domain knowledge of payments, and more recently has specialised in the use of AI to enable outstanding customer experiences. Paul was also heavily involved with ensuring health and fitness operators remained compliant following the OFT investigation into Gym Contracts in 2012 and is going to be at the forefront of the forthcoming changes in the same space coming this year.

Simon manages the day-to-day operations at Bigwave Marketing, a leisure and culture focused creative agency with a mission to make a difference and enable growth to clients, colleagues and communities.

The team of 40+ staff actively market more than 550 facilities and destinations across the UK every year, helping to sell over 22,000 fitness memberships in January 2024 alone.

The agency are Google, Microsoft and Meta partners, won ‘Southwest, Best Place to Work' in the WMN Business awards and have been European Search Awards finalists twice.

Simon is passionate about Bigwave delivering a net positive impact on both environment and society. The team at Bigwave have collaborated to reduce their agency carbon emissions by 68% in the past two years, and run a number of initiatives to drive change and support communities across the country.