Jason LaRose
Jason LaRose is the CEO of Equinox Media , a transformative on-demand platform offering access to the best brands in fitness. In his role, LaRose is responsible for leading strategy, growth and expansion for the company.
LaRose joined Equinox Media following more than 20 years of experience in brand, e-commerce, omnichannel retailing, and building communities in the digital and athletic spaces. Prior to Equinox Media, LaRose was President of North America for Under Armour where he spearheaded the company’s entrée into wearables and fitness tracking apps, expanded the Under Armour Connected Fitness platform, and established the global e-commerce business. In the earlier days of e-commerce and social media, LaRose served as an Associate Principal in the Consumer and Digital Practices at McKinsey & Company where he helped companies expand their brands into the digital space. LaRose also previously served as a board member at Shop.org and held numerous executive strategy and operating positions at Sears Holding Corporation and Express, LLC.
LaRose holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Duke
University.
Francesca Shuler
Ethan Agarwal
Ethan is the founder & CEO of Aaptiv. Prior to launching Aaptiv, Ethan spent three years at McKinsey, advising clients in the technology, media, and financial industries. He was previously an investor at LionEye Capital, a $2.5B AUM hedge fund, focused on a merger arbitrage strategy across energy, tech, and healthcare. Ethan began his career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, focused on healthcare M&A.
Ethan holds bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science from The Johns Hopkins University, with a minor in entrepreneurship. He earned his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ed Stanbury
Co-Founder and CEO of BLOK, the boutique fitness studio Vogue magazine dubbed “the trendiest gym in London”. In 2020 BLOK launched BLOKtv, their digital fitness platform.
Ed oversees all aspects of the business and is responsible for driving BLOK’s strategy for growth from a neighbourhood gym, to a global digital brand.
With 35,000 users joining live classes and customers in 134 countries since the beta launch in May 2020, BLOK is now raising investment to fuel the growth of their digital fitness platform globally.
Duncan Jefford
Duncan Jefford is a luminary in leisure management and currently Regional Director with Everyone Active, a leading operator managing 150 leisure facilities nationwide.
Renowned for his ability to positively impact business profit, without compromising on quality or service, Duncan has been instrumental in the company’s extensive growth, increasing the number of operational sites five-fold and growing turnover from £30m to £250m. He is passionate about building effective teams and driving efficiency to create more profitable businesses.
Duncan spent six years in private sector leisure management before joining local authority leisure operator Everyone Active in 2006 and over the last decade has been at the forefront of the commercialisation of the local authority leisure sector. Duncan is an advocate of a wholly commercial approach, believing that local authorities must recognise the importance of a profit-driven operational style, or risk closure. He is regularly called upon for his expertise on the topic by the sector’s leading publications.
Debra Strougo
Debra is the Co-Founder of Row House and was the founding CEO from 2013 until her partnership with Xponential Fitness in late 2017 which grew the brand to 100 currently open studios and 200 more in the works. Debra currently owns and operates the Manhattan Row House locations and works with the corporate team on all strategic brand initiatives, business development best practices and on programming initiatives. She also sits on the Franchise Advisory Council and the Marketing Fund Committee to support and represent the franchisees who are in varying stages of growth. Row House has recently been ranked 1066 in the Inc.com 5000 list of quickly growing private companies.
In addition to her expertise developing Row House from scratch, Debra has played key roles in developing businesses from scratch. Prior to Row House, she created a million dollar plus annual business for NYC, focused on creating digital partnerships with the city's tourism facing assets. This work helped NYC achieve its annual tourism numbers; tourism is traditionally the city's second biggest economic stimulus. During this time she worked with city agencies and constituents, leveraging their assets, knowledge and know-how with that of private business of all sizes. These spanned from corporations like Red Bull, Jet Blue, Starwood Hotels, and more to smaller constituents with either multiple locations like BR Guest Restaurants or single location businesses like Empire State Building and American Museum of Natural History. Debra also worked extremely closely with Broadway, spearheading the creation of Broadway Week; as a follow-up to Restaurant Week; which has become a global program to solve need periods. Debra's 5 years at NYC & Company was pivotal to her career; giving her the network and know-how to succeed.
Prior to her time developing NYC & Company's digital partnerships, Debra wanted more than anything to find a way to bridge her business acumen with her passion for the fitness industry. As an avid fitness professional, teaching classes before and after her un-related career in digital publishing, she came to learn the industry inside and out. She taught classes for top brands in NYC and took on many consulting projects to learn more about the varying aspects of the fitness industry: from gyms to what was becoming boutiques, to infomercial projects, to at home videos, to health and wellness expos, to the certification side of the industry, Debra spent over 5 years taking on projects to determine how she could create a career in fitness that she loved.
Even after graduating college a few years prior, she was in digital publishing for small up and coming VC-backed companied. She was passionate about disruption and even know, continues to move through her career motivated to cut through the clutter, create differentiation and establish sustaining business in smart niches.
Dave Long
Throughout his career, Dave has been in on the ground floor of several successful brands, always blending his passion for fitness with his business acumen. As CEO and co-founder of Orangetheory Fitness, Dave has spearheaded rapid growth, opening more than 1,300 studios in 23 countries in the last 10 years. In 2018, he helped Orangetheory Fitness in exceeding $1 billion in systemwide revenues. That success follows on the heels of his work in senior sales/operations roles with Massage Envy, taking it from 20 to 800 stores; and building an area representative network at European Wax Center, which expanded to 550 locations in less than nine years. Zealously committed to nutrition and overall wellness, Dave is an extreme sports enthusiast who has a knack for biohacking. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Florida.
Daniel Shellard
Dan is cofounder and CEO of Fiit. Previous to Fiit he co-founded Qubit — a leading European SaaS business — in 2010 after successfully raising $76 million. As COO, he built a world class team and company culture, and advised hundreds of the world’s leading retailers including Net-a-porter, Emirates Airlines and Topshop. Today Qubit employees over 250 people across six countries. Prior to Fiit and Qubit, Dan was part of the early team at Google UK, where he spent over four years in sales, strategy and operations roles.
Recognised for his entrepreneurial achievements, Dan was listed as Bloomberg’s Business Innovators 2016 and Young Guns, Class of 2014 by startups.co.uk. A self-confessed sport and fitness nut, Dan played football for Team Bath, and can usually be found either training for his next ironman or relaxing on golf course.
Colin Waggett
Colin is CEO of Third Space, London’s luxury collection of health clubs. Third Space has 6 large scale clubs in central London and plans to grow significantly in the coming years. Colin has been in the health club industry for over 15 years, with experience spanning from 6 years as Global CEO of Fitness First growing that business to over 500 clubs in 20 countries, to two start ups in the boutique studio business.
Ben Kirby
Ben is Head of PE at retail and consumer sector specialist investor True. He sits on the investment committees for the True PE and Growth funds. He is a board member of True’s investee companies Frugi and Hush. Prior to True, Ben was an investor in the London team at BGF leading investments into both private and listed businesses including Gymbox where he was a board member. He has also worked within the private equity teams at Greenhill, Goldman Sachs and Octopus Ventures.