Phillip Mills has gone from managing director of Les Mills International to executive director this year - passing the operational demands to former CMO Clive Ormerod, who becomes global CEO. But there's no question of slowing down - it's just that he's now free to focus on the parts of the business he wants to.
Mills and his wife Jackie own 76.55% of the global fitness franchise company and 92.1% of the Les Mills New Zealand holding company, which has 12 gyms nationally. Estimates of the combined value of the fitness group are between $280-300 million, putting the value of the couple’s share at between $220-240m.
Mills says the group is still in reinvestment mode and profits have been largely unchanged in the past year.
He remains executive director working on strategy, special projects and assisting the new chief executive while Jackie continues as chief creative director for the international company, overseeing the exercise-to-music classes licensed to 19,500 club and gym partners in 100 countries.
The group also sells branded merchandise, gym clothing and accessories in association with Reebok.
Ormerod, formerly chief marketing officer at telco Spark after many years with Nike, has been with the group since early 2018.
The gym empire started in 1968 when Phillip Mill’s sporty parents, Les and Colleen Mills, opened a gym in Auckland. Their son got involved in 1980 after leaving the music world, starting aerobics classes in his father’s gym. He and his wife then took their branded exercise programmes to the world.
In 2015 based on customer demand, the company changed strategy to add in a direct-to-consumer model, launching Les Mills On Demand, a video streaming service of its classes. Phillip Mills says it is “building well but is probably still a year or two away from – hopefully – being a big story.”
The Mills’ son, Les Mills junior, is helping design the revamp of Les Mills New Zealand central Auckland gym, as part of a $100 million redevelopment of the three sites it sits on over 10 years.
Work on that is about halfway through and over the next few years the LMZN team, headed by chief executive Dione Forbes-Ryrie, plans to take the innovations being introduced in that gym to other clubs and several new builds nationally.
Les is the co-creator of the company’s immersive cycling class The Trip while his sister, Diana Archer Mills, is creative director for other popular programmes, including Body Pump, which was first introduced in 1990, and creator of its barre dance programme.
A former doctor, Jackie Mills has been behind the group’s efforts to help children get into fitness through its Born to Move programme and has also pushed education resources to encourage people to take a more holistic approach to nutrition and exercise.
She and her husband co-wrote the book Fighting Globesity, which links the developed world’s obesity epidemic with the state of the planet.
Phillip Mills is also one of the founding trustees and a backer of the not-for-profit Pure Advantage, which aims to promote national debate on long-term economic and environmental benefits to New Zealand.
He says he’s hopeful that a climate change bill “with teeth” will get passed by the Coalition government and is appalled that governments worldwide are not acting urgently enough.
The Coalition’s flagship climate change policy mandates a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to limit global warming increases to 1.5C. The bill had its first reading in May and the government hopes to have it passed into law by the end of 2019.
Phillip Mills says : “As far as I’m concerned, any politician who blocks action against climate change is committing an act of genocide.”
2018: $250 million