AUSactive Board Elections: Why vote for Elaine Jobson
My name is Elaine Jobson and I am the CEO of Jetts Fitness. I am currently running to be elected for a
position on the AUSactive board and wanted the opportunity to tell you a bit about myself.
I started in the fitness industry 30 years ago in a small gym in my hometown called ‘Shape Up’ (cringe!!). This was before there really was a fitness industry, well not like the one we know today. The gym was small with only two bikes for cardio and located in a damp basement of a building but we loved it and we also loved our members. From these humble beginnings I had the opportunity to join Fitness First in its fledgling days and experience the fast growth phase where we were opening a club every 4 days around the world. It was one hell of a ride and a real opportunity to cut my teeth in business and management.
From here I moved to South Africa into the role of COO for Virgin Active. Richard had acquired the business a few years earlier from the ill-fated Health and Racquet brand, famous for aggressive sales practices and questionable leadership techniques. It was here where I learnt about how to build a world class culture and took the company to win the Deloitte Great Place to Work award.
After five years I headed out to Asia to team up with Mike Balfour, the Founder of Fitness First, once again and support the role out of his new gym chain, Jatomi Fitness in KL and Jakarta. After a couple of years and when my daughter turned 7 we headed to Australia to give her a stable upbringing in a place where she could ride her bike on the street. That’s when I met Brendon Levenson, Founder of Jetts, I fell in love with the good profit principles of Jetts where everything is designed with the customer at the centre. We have focused on building our culture as our point of difference and have been on the best places to work list for the past 6 years. As CEO I focus on keeping our people and our members happy and we are proud to have one of the highest NPS scores in the industry.
I believe longevity is the key to success in business, that as CEO I am just the custodian of it right now and that my role is to keep the business as financially and culturally healthy as possible and preserve it into the future. As Simon Sinek says, ‘business is an infinite game not a finiate one’. I also believe in this approach to our industry. We need to be planning for a long range future, anything worth doing takes time, if we are to fundamentally move our industry into a space where our governments view us as a solution for proactive wellness and health, and not just a place to take selfies and post on the gram, then we need to create a compelling vision alongside a solid plan on how we are going to achieve it. This is what AUSactive is now doing and I would like to offer my skills, knowledge and support to help them achieve this vision. With my varied experience of many different gym models across four different continents and the fact I have worked in most roles within the industry, I feel I bring something unique to the current board.
Please vote for me by responding to the email in your inbox from Truevote, the ballot closes at 3pm Thursday 3rd November 2022.
Elaine’s Bio
I have been in the fitness industry for the past 30 years working in Senior and Executive roles for brands such as Fitness First, Virgin Active and now Jetts Fitness where I recently performed a management buy out. My passion for this industry has taken we from the UK to South Africa, Malaysia and now Australia which I now call home.
Justin is the Managing Director of Active Management, which he began January 2004. He offers coaching to businesses worldwide in everything from start up and design to marketing and sales systems. Justin also facilitates four Australian and New Zealand ‘fitness industry roundtables’ events, which allows him to see a huge cross section of business models.