Global summit will bring together industry leaders in health, fitness and wellness | spaopportunities.com news

Global publishing outfit, Leisure Media, has announced details of its new annual conference for decision-makers across the health, fitness and wellness markets.

The event – the HCM Summit – will be held at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster, London on 24 October 2024, with pre-summit events the day before.

The all-keynote summit, hosted by the team at HCM magazine, will welcome 400 delegates in London, as well as being webcast live globally and available on-demand. It will cover the public, private and voluntary sectors in health, fitness and wellness.

Leisure Media CEO, Liz Terry, said: “Every day, HCM and its sister titles, Spa Business and FitTechGlobal bring together operators, suppliers, policymakers and industry experts to collaborate via its news channels, magazines, books, ezines and social media feeds.

“Our new summit will unite this powerful community in real time at the QEII Conference Centre in London to network, collaborate and do business, while our global live stream will enable readers around the world, who are not able to travel, to tune in to hear our excellent speakers share their insights and expertise.”

HCM publisher, Jan Williams, said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming delegates to the first HCM Summit on October 24th and to making this a valuable part of the industry’s annual calendar.

“In addition to preparing an excellent, high-level conference, we’re also collaborating with key clients from across our HCM, Spa Business and FitTechGlobal networks, to ensure the quality of both the conference and networking events are matched by an excellent trade exhibition that will run alongside, so delegates can get updated with the latest innovations to power their success.”

Sponsorship options are available here, or contact Jan Williams by email at [email protected] or on +44 (0)1462 471909.

The conference website is now live at www.HCMmag.com/summit.

Registration for the HCM Summit 2024 will open on 1 May 2024.

You can register to be notified when registration goes live by clicking this link.

The first group of speakers has been published, with more to be announced over the coming months.

The initial speaker list includes:

Fahad Alhagbani
CEO, Armah Sports
Alhagbani set a precedent in the fitness industry by developing, building and launching two different fitness chains in Saudi Arabia – Fitness Time and Armah Sports – and taking them public with only a five year window between the two IPOs.

Eric Falardeau
Partner, McKinsey
Falardeau is the leader of McKinsey’s fitness and wellness group globally and one of the leaders of McKinsey’s Consumer Insights capability.

Pieterjan (PJ) Nuitten
CEO, Jims
Nuitten is a retail specialist who took the helm at Jims, a leading fitness chain which was acquired by Colruyt Group as part of its move to deliver an holistic wellness offering to its customers.

Nuitten is leveraging the synergies between retail and fitness as a member the board of directors of the Health Vertical of Colruyt Group.

Baz Moffat
Founder, The Well HQ
Former Team GB rower Baz Moffat retired from elite sport to launch an international consulting and coaching business called The Well HQ.

The organisation works in health and fitness and sport, most recently with Adidas, The Gym Group and CIMSPA.

Moffat has a BSc in Sports Science from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in health-related behaviour change from the University of Bristol.

Will Orr
CEO, The Gym Group
Will Orr joined The Gym Group in September 2023. He was formerly MD of Times Media Limited, publisher of The Times and The Sunday Times.

Phillip Mills
Founder, Les Mills International
Mills is one of the most experienced players in the global fitness industry.

Throughout the 80s he transformed fitness with the introduction of exercise to music and developed the 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 health clubs across 120 countries. Millions of people improve their health every day with Les Mills classes, both in gyms and online.

Justin Musgrove
CEO, Fitness First UK
Musgrove spent 20 years overseeing the spa, wellness and leisure business at Center Parcs, before joining The Bannatyne Group where he was CEO between 2014 and 2019.

He moved to join Leejam Sports company in the Middle East as CEO, followed by Kun Investment Holding in Saudi Arabia, as CEO of a new subsidiary, Kun Sports.

He returned to the UK in October 2023 to become CEO of Fitness First UK, charged with turning around the business.

Colin Waggett
CEO, Third Space
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.

Emlyn Brown
Senior VP Wellbeing, Strategy Design & Development, Accor
Brown started his career in fitness with Holmes Place, holding director-level roles in Switzerland and Germany before moving into the wellness and hospitality sector in 1996.

Prior to Accor, he was a senior lead at Resense Spas and wellness director at consultancy, GOCO Hospitality. He also held senior positions at Six Senses Resorts & Spas.

Today he’s responsible for driving the strategic development and design strategy for wellness at Accor.

For a deeper dive into speaker bios, visit the conference website at click here.