Fred Turok, founder and chairman of LA Fitness, has been elected chairman of the Fitness Industry Association. He will officially succeed current chairman, Harm Tegelaars, in September.
Turok, who has been a vice-chairman of the organisation for over a year, has almost 30 years’ experience of the health and fitness sector. As a former PE teacher who used his house as surety to buy his first club, he is aware of the pressures of managing clubs, whether they are single sites or multiple chains. Turok has also won respect within the industry and beyond for being an entrepreneur and a highly-successful operator.
“The next three to five years are critical to the success of our industry” says Turok. “The team has made huge strides in raising the industry’s profile at Westminster and securing crucial funding for our activity-based programming. But our challenge is to accelerate this funding stream and make sure we are seen to be a vital part of the government’s 2012 legacy planning strategy. We must make FIA members critical to all consumers’ health and wellbeing aspirations and plans, that they never shop anywhere else.”
Commenting on the tenure of the outgoing chairman, Andree Deane, CEO of the FIA, said: “Harm Tegelaars leaves a profound legacy behind him; an industry which is more professional, more respected beyond the four walls of our sector and more successful than at any other time in its history.
“The board is confident that Fred’s energy, drive, vision and ambition for the industry will use this platform as a springboard to ensure that every single public and private operator will, irrespective of their size, maximize the twin opportunities of the public health agenda and 2012.”
