Les Mills Revamps Exec Team, Doubles Down on Live Fitness
Founder Phillip Mills will play a larger role in running the company as Les Mills rolls out new in-club workouts and live events
Les Mills has revamped its leadership team with founder Phillip Mills at the forefront as the international fitness brand plans new strategies to enhance the in-club experience, new workout classes and live fitness events.
The leadership changes follow the departure of Les Mills CEO Clive Ormerod, who announced last November that he’d be stepping down from his role to spend time with his family before embarking on a new opportunity.
“We now have a new leadership team in place – featuring myself as Group Managing Director and James Graham as CEO of Global Markets – with a clear plan to get back to what we do best in driving success for clubs and instructors,” confirmed Phillip Mills, who stepped in to run the company upon Ormerod’s exit. Keith Burnet, the fitness brand’s CEO of global markets, also left Les Mills to launch his own business.
The Return of Live Fitness
“We leaned on digital products to support our club partners through the pandemic, and now we’re doubling down on live fitness experiences to accelerate the next phase of industry growth,” Mills said.
Even with the worst of the pandemic behind those in the industry, Mills noted that the past few years have seen clubs having to cut costs and increase prices to return to profitability.
“Members aren’t silly, and they’ve noticed this, so to get back to member growth, we need to elevate the in-club experience,” he continued. “To support this, we’ve developed a whole new generation of workout experiences that are testing off the charts in our New Zealand clubs, and we’ve started launching last year.”
Les Mills Live, in collaboration with Adidas, has a list of nine tour stops scheduled for 2024, kicking off with a training festival in Brisbane next month.
An Array of New Workouts
In addition to new class launches this year, Les Mills is unveiling an “Accelerate Club Success” strategy to elevate the in-club experience with fresh programming, such as Functional Strength, Les Mills Dance, Shapes and Strength Development. The fitness brand also plans to launch three or four additional programs this year, including Ceremony and Conquer, two new club-in-club programs.
The Les Mills leadership team also includes Martin Franklin, U.K. and Western Europe CEO, Lena Holmberg, Nordic and Eastern Europe CEO and Sean Turner, U.S. CEO.
Although Les Mills is certainly taking steps to drive its fitness experience in-club and at live events, the brand has also made headway in the metaverse, launching Les Mills XR Bodycombat for Meta Quest 3 and, more recently, Les Mills XR Dance.
