How did you become interested in working for Fitnescity?
Health and wellness has always been important to me. Growing up with parents who ran marathons, I fell in love with being active at a very young age. As I got older, sports became a bigger and bigger part of my life, and my identity, and I started to become very curious about the human body - mainly how my body worked (I am a huge physics nerd). I wanted to understand how the choices I made, whether it be in my diet, my recovery or in my training directly affected my performance as an athlete.
My athletic career got more serious after my freshman year at Harvard when I shed my NCAA swimming and track eligibility to join the US National Triathlon program and to become a professional triathlete. With the support of USA Triathlon behind me, I was afforded opportunities to undergo a variety of assessments including a DEXA scan as well as both basal and resting metabolic rate analysis. Those tests provided me, and my coaches, with information that painted a more comprehensive picture of the inner workings of my body allowing us to fine tune the way that I was eating, training and working day-in-and-day-out to become the best triathlete in the world. I was also able to utilize the benefits of blood panels to look for clues when my training was off or my energy levels were lower than normal. With so many variables, those biomarkers were like puzzle pieces; alone they meant very little, but when assessed in relationship to each other, they allowed my team to create a strategy to optimize my health and performance.
NYC Triathlon 2013 (photo courtesy of Josh Iverson)
When I started exploring the next steps in my career, it became apparent to me that I wanted to work for a company with a mission that would drive positive social impact in the world. The Fitnescity mission is to help people better understand their bodies. And, while that may seem simple, I think taking ownership of your body and your health is one of the most important things we can all do in our lives. With so many competing sources providing slanted information, and a health care system largely influenced by “big pharma,” I believe that every individual has a right to, and should be armed with, as much information about how their individual body works as possible.
After my first conversation with Laila Zemrani, the CEO & Founder, I fell in love with her passion for the quantified self and the underlying mission of Fitnescity: to help everyone better understand their bodies. I knew I wanted to be a part of her team.
What team are you currently on?
I am the Head of Partnerships and Growth.
What does that mean? I am responsible for wearing many hats right now, which I love, including building out our supply side partners as well as activating and growing our demand side clients. I am also working on building our library of content, creating a social media and content strategy and generating a general strategy to hit all of our growth targets. It’s a huge departure from my prior role in operations, and not without a steep learning curve, but I can tell already, not even two weeks in, that this was absolutely the right move for me and I’m so grateful that I earned the opportunity to take on this role.
What are you most excited for as you grow in your role at Fitnescity?
Learning from a female founder: from our first conversation, Laila has made me feel not only valued but also supported in sharing my ideas, taking risks and in thinking outside of the box. Having the opportunity to build this company with her is pretty special.
Providing needed education: There is so much mis-information in the health and wellness space. I’m excited to learn from our community: to hear what they don’t understand, what they want to know and to create a safe space - utilizing my deep knowledge about health and fitness - giving them the tools and resources to make truly informed choices about their health and well-being without the influence of our healthcare system.
Developing as a leader: I look forward to taking on the responsibility of managing a team as the company grows and being able to adapt a leadership style that reflects the way I wish I’d been led in my career to this point.
Being at the center of a cultural shift: The face of health and wellness in our country is rapidly evolving as the quantified-self movement continues to grow and I’m excited to be a company that will be a player in that movement.
If you could give advice to the every day consumer, what would it be?
Ask questions and when you think you have the answer, ask some more. We live in a world that is filled with information but you have to take the time to recognize who is publishing that information and what their end goals are. Nobody has your best interests in mind more than you do, so take the time to ask questions and to seek the resources and education that you need so that you can be an active participant in your health and wellness and not a bystander. And, while it may seem trivial, I would challenge everyone to move every day. Just get up and go outside and move. Even if it’s just a short walk, the benefits of movement and exercise on your overall health, physically, mentally and emotionally cannot be under emphasized. Make the commitment to yourself, even if it’s just 10 minutes per day.