United PF Partners, the largest Planet Fitness franchisee, has acquired clubs in the Phoenix and New Orleans areas.
This addition adds 11 new clubs to the United PF Partners family, and brings the company’s total club count to 78, operating across 10 states.
Club Solutions spoke with Trey Owen, the president and CEO of United PF Partners, about the new acquisitions and their implications for Planet Fitness.
CS: What do these acquisitions mean for Planet Fitness?
TO: Adding the clubs in New Orleans and Arizona to our United PF Partners portfolio brings: strong performing existing clubs, growth markets that contain additional development rights to further expand, and an opportunity to widen best practices, the United PF culture and operational excellence across more locations.
CS: What is your growth plan for the next few years?
TO: Although we may consider additional strategic acquisitions, our primary goals are to: swiftly develop and open strong new clubs in our current area development agreement (ADA) territories, continue to develop our people and processes for scale, and lead in operational excellence to provide the best possible club member and team member experience.
CS: Anything in development you’re excited about?
TO: We recently brought Shelli Taylor on board as our COO. Shelli has immense operational experience and was most recently the SVP of operations for Starbucks China with 3,900 stores. She had responsibility for direct operations for 2,000 company stores and provided franchisor-type guidance and support to the JV partner operating 1,900 locations. In addition to direct operations responsibility, Shelli led several functional departments including operations services, the customer contact center, food department, safety and security and the opening of the new SBUX reserve and roastery in Shanghai.
Needless to say, I’m thrilled to have Shelli as a partner helping our entire team lead United PF Partners into this new phase of structure, growth and development. Setting her experience aside, I couldn’t have found a better culture fit for me and for our team in Shelli. Although back in the United States and at our Support Center in Austin for less than one month, Shelli is already making a huge impact on our thought process and outlook on how to purposefully build and lead an organization at scale. I’ve never been more excited in my seven years as a Planet Fitness franchisee.
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Bobby is the former assistant editor of Club Solutions Magazine.
