the advisory board
Mark Kershaw
General Manager - Fitness First
Fitness First is the largest health and fitness group in the world, with more than 500 clubs worldwide, and over 170 clubs in the UK. Gyms feature the number one personal training product worldwide, and over 1000 Personal Trainers running their own successful businesses from within the clubs, motivating classes and the leading edge cardiovascular and weight equipment.
Fitness First is also very involved in improving the lives and careers of their staff offering various courses and career enhancements including The Future Leaders Program which sets staff on a course to learning to become a General Manager and beyond.
Mark Kershaw is currently the Manager of Fitness First Bedford as well as the top performing Cluster Manager within the company. Mark has his hands full with Bedford, one of the company's flagship locations featuring all the top equipment, classes and a pool. http://www.fitnessfirst.co.uk
Dr. Chris Tomkins
Business Development Director - Unilever plc, Marketing & Partnership Director - Project 'Juice'
Chris is currently a Business Development Director for Unilever PLC. He has experience and success in business start up and venture development. His passion is to confront the growing weight of the population with a solution that really works. He is launching a business backed by Unilever Ventures, Milife. Milife uses Unilever's wealth of expertise in people's behaviour with smart computer systems, nutrition, weight management and physical activity to improve individual lifestyles. Scientific trials have already confirmed the team has achieved a world first for helping people change their behaviour leading to more than a DOUBLING of physical activity and weightloss.
Chris also has a doctorate in Molecular Biology and was formerly a lead scientist for Unilever Corporate Research. http://www.unilever.com
Sylvia Bourne
Associate Director - Royal Bank of Scotland / Nat West
Sylvia is an Associate Director for Business Development at Royal Bank of Scotland / Nat West Commercial Division, covering Bedfordshire and North Herts. Sylvia's primary role is to bring new business to the group with focus on tailoring finance solutions, financing mergers and acquisitions and strategic business planning for businesses with turnovers between 1£m and £25m.
Sylvia was born, bred and lives in Bedfordshire. Fitness has played a major part in her life from an early age when she took up skiing competitively. She also competed in affiliated equestrianism for many years. Sylvia started running 3yrs ago and last year competed in the London 10k for charity, signing up again this year with the hope of raising more funds and beating her personal best. Sylvia's next goal is to compete in the Bedford Jordans tri-athlon in 2008
Lloyd Conaway
Team Beds and Luton / Sport England
Lloyd had a career in Local Government - working in Sport, Leisure, Economic Development and Tourism, becoming an Assistant Chief Executive. He then moved to Sport England as Director of Regions and then became Partnerships and Investment Director.
Following a secondment to London 2012, where he worked on the legacy plan for the bid he moved on to become CEO of the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management.
He enjoys all sports and is a long suffering Exeter City fan. http://teambedsandluton.co.uk
Alistair Kerr
University of Bedfordshire
The School of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the Bedford campus promotes an understanding of sport and exercise participation and its relation to physical and mental well-being. It has a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes that focus on physical education, sport and exercise science, and physical activity and health. It has been delivering education in these areas for over one hundred years and has developed a reputation for excellence in teaching and research. This work is supported by excellent facilities including new gymnasia and state of the art sport and exercise science laboratories.
Alistair manages the teaching, research and consultancy activities based in the School. He is keen for the School to further develop its links with the wider community and with external institutions that have overlapping interests with the School's teaching, research and entrepreneurial interests. http://www.beds.ac.uk
