SPEAKERS

Hailing from Tyne and Wear, Jill's journey from a young, accomplished long-distance runner and footballer to a celebrated figure in women's football included pivotal moments such as winning the North of England Under-13 cross-country title and the Junior Great North Run. She ultimately chose football over running, embarked on an educational path studying Sport and Exercise Science, and began her senior career with Sunderland Women. Her impressive rise led her to Everton Women, where she earned accolades such as the FA Tesco Players' Player of the Year award. Subsequently, she joined Manchester City, contributing significantly to their victories, including the Continental Cup Trophy in 2014.

Jill's remarkable career also extended to the England senior squad, with her inclusion in major tournaments like the 2007 World Cup and the 2009 UEFA Women's European Championships. Recognized for her exceptional contributions to women's football, she was appointed an MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours and showcased her versatility by triumphing in "I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here," earning the title of queen of the jungle in 2022. Post-retirement from football, Jill has seamlessly transitioned into broadcasting and even ventured into entrepreneurship with her own coffee shop in Manchester, a testament to her multifaceted talents and passions.

Dean Leak is a culture & leadership coach to FTSE100 companies, British Government, and C-Suite Executives. With over 15 years in Olympic High-Performance sport, Dean helps leaders & organisations build more connected, cohesive, and healthy performance teams.

Dean’s talk will draw on his inspirational work and winning mindset to explain how the health of the nation and the health of your organisation, starts with you.

Kim Leadbeater has been the Labour MP for Batley and Spen since 1st July 2021. During her time in Parliament she has been extremely supportive of the physical activity sector, including in her role as Chair of the APPG for Sport. In 2023, Kim worked with the Fabian Society to author the report Healthy Britain, which advocated a new policy approach to health and wellbeing. Prior to entering Parliament, Kim was a qualified personal trainer and lecturer in physical activity.

Charlotte is CEO of the National Academy for Social Prescribing, a charity funded by the Department of Health and Social Care to advance social prescribing through development of innovation, best practice, evidence, new investment models and better awareness. The Academy works closely in partnership with a wide range of organisations across diverse sectors including the arts, physical activity, heritage, the natural environment and community services, and leads an international network of partners in 30 countries developing social prescribing. Charlotte was previously the CEO of Involve Kent, where she designed and delivered a range of innovative programmes to address health inequalities and support communities, working closely with the NHS and local authorities.

The Rt Hon Stuart Andrew MP was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Equalities) for the Equality Hub on 27 October 2022.

He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between 20 September 2022 and 27 October 2022, and Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice between 8 July 2022 and 7 September 2022.

He was Minister of State (Minister for Housing) in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities from 8 February 2022 to 6 July 2022.

He was Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip) from 13 February 2020 to 8 February 2022.

He was Vice Chamberlain of HM Household (Government Whip) from 28 July 2019 to 13 February 2020. He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Minister for Defence Procurement at the Ministry of Defence from July 2018 to July 2019.

He was an Assistant Government Whip from 15 June 2017 to 19 July 2018 and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Wales Office from 9 January 2018 to 19 July 2018.

With 18 years experience in the health & fitness industry, Jules started her career at Front of House before moving into a Sales & Marketing Exec position within operations. Julie then went onto manage Front of House and Customer Service before joining TRP/Fitronics as a Customer Engagement Coach. Jules joined Active Insight (formerly Leisure-net Solutions) as Business Development Director in 2022 and is passionate about utilising data to develop the customer experience leading to increased physical activity for infants through to active ageing. Staying close to the member experience – Jules still teaches Zumba and Spin!

Barry joined ParalympicsGB in July 2021, ahead of the Tokyo Games. His highlights include leading on a full rebrands of programmes and establishing co-production groups to ensure that he lived experience of disabled people is placed at the heart of ParalympicsGB work.

Prior to ParalympicsGB, Barry has worked in the charitable, public and private sectors, but has always centred around leading innovative programmes of work that build inclusivity and equity of opportunity for people to become more active in whatever way they choose.

Barry enjoys getting both his pedal and motor bikes out on the road and following as much live sport as possible. He will be completing the final leg of the London Classics challenge coming up in September, where he will attempt to swim the 2-mile course of the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Barry is working on his front crawl in preparation!

Cliff previously owned three fitness centres in the UK and won five national awards for excellence for service delivery and in management. As a UK Government adviser in the 1990’s he had a major influence on the development of the technical standards for exercise professionals, and for the quality management of fitness clubs, including the development of QUEST.

He was the Registrar for REPS UK from its start until 2008 when he transferred to working in Europe where he managed 16 major EU-funded projects and was member/observer at a number of EU Expert Groups including in good governance, the economic dimension of sport, anti-doping, skills and human resources development, active ageing, and promoting health-enhancing physical activity. He oversaw the European Skills Competencies, Qualifications, Occupations (ESCO) referencing for the fitness sector, and coordinated the major EU project called BLUEPRINT which developed a pathway for recognising fitness sector qualifications at the European level.

He is the current convenor of the CEN Working Group developing European standards for fitness clubs (EN17229), and convenor of the European fitness club certification scheme known as FITcert®. He holds a masters degree in architecture, and has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

David is the Chief Development and Sustainability Officer at The Gym Group and has responsibility for delivery and support of their high quality gyms as well as developing, implementing and leading their sustainability strategy. Davidacts as an ambassador for all sustainability related matters, both internally and externally and has led tgg to a market leading position.

The Gym Group has been carbon neutral since 2021, purchases 100% renewable energy, has reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 11% since 2019. It is committed to Net Zero and is the first gym to have an accredited science based target and achieve ISO45001. The Gym Group is the only UK gym to calculate and publish the social value generated by its members, delivering £756m in 2022.

In 2014 Greg was awarded an OBE for his services to Sport, Sport Science & Charity, and was voted as one of the Top 10 Science Communicators in the UK by the British Science Council. Greg is an Olympian in modern pentathlon, and is a European and World medalist. He is a specialist in the field of sports, exercise and health science. Graduating from Brunel University, he furthered his studies with an MSc in human performance in the USA and completed his PhD at St. Georges Hospital Medical School, London. Greg is currently a Professor of Applied Sport and Exercise Science at Liverpool John Moore’s University. Greg's former roles include Director of Research for the British Olympic Association; Director of Science & Research for the English Institute of Sport; and Director of Performance at the Centre for Health and Human Performance at 76 Harley Street, London.

Greg is an authority on Sport & Exercise Physiology and Performance. An internationally recognised expert in the field having published over 350 peer reviewed papers, 8 å and a leading media commentator. Greg has extensive professional experience assessing, treating and improving the performance of patients, sporting enthusiasts and athletes ranging from cancer sufferers to celebrities attempting their first mountain summit to Gold medal seeking Olympians.

Greg is well-known for his involvement in Comic Relief, since 2006 Greg has applied his sports science work to assist various celebrities in completing some of the toughest challenges. Greg has trained, motivated and successfully coached 36 Sport & Comic Relief, and Children in Need Challenges helping raise over £60 million for charity.

Mike is a well established and respected management consultant with 13 years of CEO experience in the NHS, having stepped down as the Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation in September 2013. He then carried out consultancy work where he chaired the PwC Public Sector Health Board helping to improve the company's offer to the health and care sector. As part of Mike’s portfolio he has built a successful independent consulting business practice (Mike Farrar Consulting Ltd) working with clients such as Celesio, RCGP, ABPI, NHS Quest, NHS Leadership Academy, J and J, Health Foundation, Medtronic, intuitive, Pfizer, Novartis, CIPFA, Olympus, Ondine Medical, and Visionable as well as advising on equity investment and starting up a number of small companies aimed at promoting health innovations, and links with sport.

In addition to his role as Chair, Mike also Chairs the Nominations Committee, is member of the Remuneration Committee, is the Board Champion for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, and Lead Board Director for Welfare & Safety.

Ian Mullane is a respected thought leader, white paper author, regular keynote speaker at industry events globally. He is also, notably, a GymNation Board member and member of the ukactive Digital Futures Council. Having experience as both an operator and a supplier, he has a singular ability to first understand the challenges faced by our sector, then demystify the ways in which technology can help neutralize them.

When it comes to technology and its increasingly pivotal role in the fitness sector, there are few speakers more thought-provoking than AI expert and self-professed geek Ian Mullane. As the founder and CEO of AI-powered sales and retention platform Keepme, Ian has brought together the diverse expertise of his career to date – including 12 years as an operator – in a ground-breaking business that boosts revenues for gym operators across the globe, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to drive optimization and transform the way they interact with customers and prospects.

Diving into a little more detail, having spent 15 years working on fintech solutions for some of the world’s largest hedge funds and investment managers, in 2007 Ianfounded Vanda.fit – Singapore’s first boutique boxing club – and alongside this, in 2008, the social media analytics platform Locowise. It was at Vanda.fit that he identified the need for a system that would optimize the performance of his club; his expertise in tech and AI led him to develop Keepme, which since 2020 has become his full-time focus (some might say mission!)

Has worked in the industry since 1985 in many roles such as lifeguard, head pool attendant, duty manager, assistant manager, manager and group manager for the private sector, Local Authorities and leisure management contractors.

His last employed role was with a leisure contractor, taking responsibility for quality, health and safety, human resources and training and development for 60 centres and 3000 employees.

He merged his consulting business of 6 years with Leisure-net Solutions (now Active Insight) in April 2014. Active Insight now works with Sport England delivering Moving Communities – the monitoring and evaluation tool of the National Leisure Recovery Fund (in England). We also manage active-net, virtual and face to face networking events.

David specialises in assisting organisations, to understand that how through an excellent customer experience they can generate referrals, retain customers for longer and enhance the team experience.

David was, for 9 years, a member elected Trustee of the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity, he chairs CIMSPA’s Audit and Probity Committee, is a Non-Executive Director of LeisureSK, is a member of ukactive’s Membership Council, a member of ActiveIQ advisory panel and a member of Leicestershire and Rutland Sport (Active Partnership) Business, Audit and Oversight Group.

David’s qualifications include an MBA in International Sports Management from Loughborough University, a National Examination Board Occupational Safety and Health Certificate and a Preparing To Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector qualification.

Hannah Beecham MBE is the founder of RED January, a nationwide movement and mental health campaign, that empowers people to overcome barriers that currently lead to higher inactivity and lower wellbeing in the winter.

The winter campaign leads a year-round mission to support movement and mental health projects that can drive real change in local communities, this includes campaigning for positive change in UK workplaces.

Since 2016, over 280,000 have joined the campaign, so far raising more than £3.2 million as part of their annual personal movement challenge.

Ben has been with Everyone Active since 2007 and has worked in the leisure industry for over 30 years. He started working in leisure as a lifeguard and having worked in many different roles is now Group Development Director for Everyone Active, who operate over 200 facilities on behalf of 64 local authorities. As Group Development Director he leads the group's operational development and innovation across the business.

Dr Matthew Wade is Head of Research and Development at ukactive and leads the ukactive Research Institute which looks to generate and translate physical activity-based evidence to support, protect and inform ukactive members, and to underpin physical activity policy and delivery. Working across ukactive’s strategic pillars, Matthew promotes and supports best practice for research implementation, data collection, analysis, and reporting ensuring an evidence-based approach to practice and policy.

Matthew has extensive experience of physical activity-based research and evaluation across various populations. This involves the design, implementation and reporting of research projects on behalf of fitness and leisure operators, local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, charities, physical activity providers, governing bodies, and large brands. Specific examples can be found on the ‘Projects’ page. Matthew is also experienced in collecting short-term as well as longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data and in designing bespoke questionnaires using appropriate, well-established, and veracious measures.

Matthew is a Visiting Researcher at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, part of the Scientific Advisory Board for EuropeActive’s research arm ‘ThinkActive’, as well as numerous advisory or steering group positions. Matthew has a keen interest in the role of physical activity for health, and his PhD thesis provided an evaluation of a community-based intervention grounded in Motivational Interviewing that aimed to improve physical activity and mental wellbeing.

Katy Cox is a freelance management consultant, working with both public sector and commercial organisations across a wide range of strategic projects, specialising in developing business cases and strategies, advising organisations undertaking mergers and acquisitions, and undertaking governance reviews.

Challenge Director, UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge
George leads the UK Government’s £98 million Healthy Ageing Challenge, a research and innovation programme to enable people as they age to remain active, productive, independent and socially connected across the generations for longer. His background in health and care innovation includes previous work on the future capacity needs for a reformed health and social care system in the Republic of Ireland, a review of the NHS innovation funding for small businesses and leading the user group for a global industry alliance to enable a consumer-friendly market for digital wellness and health products and services through standards and accreditation.

Part of Movember’s original start up, since 2008 Sarah has led growth initiatives at Movember, seeing the charity raise more than $1.6 billion via peer-to-peer fundraising and commercial partnerships. Movember today supports more than 6 million participants, operates across the world, and funds over 1700 health and social programs.

In her current role Sarah is responsible for the leadership and strategic direction of Movember’s work globally in health promotion programs, to drive changes in men's behaviour, so they will live happier, healthier, longer lives.