Jan Middelkamp

Jan graduated from the Academy of Physical Education (Bachelor Degree) and Sports, Exercise and Health at Utrecht University (Master in Science Degree). He started his career in the fitness industry as a judo teacher and was part of the Dutch National Judo team for five years. Later he became club and franchise manager at Fit-Care, one of the first soft franchise chains in the Netherlands. At the same time he was a consultant for the HDD Group and responsible for the introduction of Les Mills in the Netherlands and Belgium. Jan was COO of Fitness First in the Netherlands. He became commercial director and shareholder at HDD Group. For three years he was COO and business development director at HealthCity/BasicFit International, a European health club chain with 265 clubs in 7 countries. From 2009 he was the CEO of the HDD Group. Currently, Jan is the CEO of BlackBoxPublishers, Development Director at HDD Group and Board member of EuropeActive (formerly EHFA) in Brussels. He is also working on a PhD on adherence of members in fitness clubs at the Behavioural Science Institute of the Radboud University in the Netherlands. He published over 10 books, like the state of research in the global fitness industry (2012), Member retention in fitness clubs (2013) and the EuropeActive retention reports 2013 and 2014.