A look into Tom Leverton’s plans to lead Purpose Brands into further success one franchisee at a time.
2024, Orangetheory Fitness and Self Esteem Brands merged to create Purpose Brands.
Through a combined portfolio of world-class brands — Orangetheory Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Waxing the City, Basecamp Fitness/SUMHIIT Fitness, The Bar Method and Stronger U Nutrition — Purpose Brands operates in more than 7,000 locations — 46% outside the U.S. They provide health and wellness services to 6 million members across 50 countries and territories on all seven continents.
In November 2024, Chuck Runyon and David Mortensen, the co-founders of Self Esteem Brands, passed the baton to Tom Leverton after 23 years of leadership.
“The creation of Purpose Brands gives us the opportunity to move fast and be flexible in the marketplace, and I’m confident that under Tom’s leadership we are positioned for rapid expansion and greater market share,” said Dave Long, the co-founder of Orangetheory Fitness and co-chair of the Purpose Brands board. “Our innovation is powered by our portfolio brands’ franchisees and members, and together we’re more strongly positioned than ever to rapidly scale and improve the health and well-being of even more people worldwide.”
Before diving into the health and fitness industry, Leverton served as an operating partner at Pritzker Private Capital, co-leading the firm’s activities in the services sector. He’s also previously served as CEO of CEC Entertainment, the parent company of Chuck E. Cheese, Topgolf and Omniflight, and formerly served as chief development officer at FedEx Office.
“If you look at my past, there’s really three roles that brought me a lot of personal enjoyment,” said Leverton. “One, my very first job out of college, I was a medical device engineer. At 22 years old, if I did my job well, I could contribute to saving somebody’s life in the medical field. When I was CEO of that medical helicopter business, again, you do your job well as a CEO — like train the flight nurses better or have better uptime with the helicopters — you contribute to saving somebody’s life. And then Chuck E. Cheese. The purpose of Chuck E. Cheese is to make kids happy. That’s a pretty rewarding reason to get out of bed every morning. At Purpose Brands — and this is the thing that really sealed it for me — we save people’s lives just like I did as a medical device engineer in the medical helicopter business. We just do it in a different way, and the lives we don’t save, we make better. And that’s for 6 million people across the world. That really drew me in as a reason to get out of bed every morning and it motivates me every day since I joined.”
Since taking on the CEO role, Leverton has hit the ground running setting out to achieve three goals:
1. Bring the two companies together.
2. Continue to drive growth.
3. Leveraging their scale to deploy new tools and services to franchisees.
One Team, One Vision
Leverton’s biggest focus is to bring the two companies together, and that is an effort unto itself. The brand has headquarters in three locations across the country, and Leverton added they need to make sure they all start to work together toward common goals. “We’re trying to do something very big,” he said. “We’re bringing two very powerful companies together, Self Esteem Brands and Orangetheory, and that’s a big task. I love big challenges.”
While this is Leverton’s first go-around in the fitness industry, it’s not his first time navigating business mergers.
“I’ve been through a few different integrations before, and what I’ve learned is the number one issue you have to think about is integrating the cultures,” he said. “And you need to do that carefully, cautiously and slowly, and it needs to be organically driven. You cannot go into one business and tell them, ‘Hey, congratulations. Today, this is your new culture.’”
With this in mind, Purpose Brands is starting to make sure the teams are communicating more, interacting more and starting to have some common projects where they understand each other better to allow the two cultures to come together in an organic way.
“Both companies have fantastic cultures, but there’s a difference between the two of them,” added Leverton. “We just need to manage that very carefully to make sure we retain and develop the team members that we do have.”
The company has already promoted several people to be Purpose Brands leaders, including Matthew Stanton — the former chief development officer for Self Esteem Brands — who is now chief development officer for Purpose Brands. These opportunities are exciting for the individual and allow the company to tap the best and brightest they have.
In addition to developing current employees, they’re also adding new ones to the team.
Purpose Brands named Lauren Cody as brand president of Orangetheory Fitness in January 2025. Cody brings more than 25 years of executive leadership experience with large, multi-unit franchise brands across diverse customer-facing industries, positioning her to lead Orangetheory into its next chapter.
“I’m thrilled to join Orangetheory Fitness at such an exciting time for the fitness, health and wellness industry,” said Cody. “The science-backed, technology-driven approach that Dave and the team have refined over the years has truly set Orangetheory apart. Combined with our global community of passionate franchise owners, I’m confident Orangetheory is positioned to seize the moment. We have an incredible opportunity to drive innovation and growth. I look forward to further elevating the member experience, expanding our partnerships with franchisees worldwide and working with the wider talented team at Purpose Brands to build on this momentum.”
Growth With No Boarders
Part of the momentum Cody referred to is scaling both businesses in the U.S. and across the globe.
“Anytime Fitness has many locations domestically and internationally, but still a lot of white space and a lot of opportunity to drive more growth through the franchisees, better services and attracting new members,” explained Leverton. “Orangetheory is a very powerful brand domestically, but not as much international. We’re looking toward the international side from a growth standpoint.”
They plan to achieve this by putting the member first.
“I’ve learned that No. 1 is to have a passionate dedication to the end member,” explained Leverton. “If you have that as your North Star — serving that end member — things tend to go well for you. With such a high level purpose, we need to have that same dedication to every member. And if we focus on that member first, we’re going to do the right services for our franchisees overall.”
New Tools and Tech
Lastly, Leverton emphasized the importance to leveraging their scale while bringing the business together to deploy new tools and services to franchisees.
“Think about that from a technology standpoint,” said Leverton. “We have great opportunities like Apple Fitness+ on the Anytime Fitness side, the heart rate monitor and all that technology on the Orangetheory side, and many others. But how can we tap that overall technology to deliver better services to the franchisees across all of our brands?”
In December 2023, Anytime Fitness teamed up with Apple Fitness+ to offer members an unmatched digital and in-person fitness experience.
Anytime Fitness members in the U.S. and Canada have access to an Apple Fitness+ subscription included in their membership at no additional cost. Prospective members who try Anytime Fitness for free can get a free trial for up to three months at no cost. Additionally, Apple Fitness+ users who join Anytime Fitness and sign up for at least a 13-month membership will get their first 30 days at no charge.
These offerings align with Purpose Brands’ mission to empower individuals worldwide to lead healthier lives through cutting-edge technology and personalized support. By integrating innovative solutions like Apple Fitness+, the brand demonstrates a strong commitment to enhancing the member experience and fostering long-term engagement.
In 2025 Leverton said they’re also prioritizing building a common platform for all of their brands to leverage.
“When you think about online access services on the web, ways that our franchisees can communicate to prospective members, all of that can be built leveraging our tremendous scale, 6 million members, more than 50 countries and all seven continents,” said Leverton. “That is a new level of service that we can provide across all of our brands once we build that carefully.”
Additionally, down the road Purpose Brands is excited about bringing other brands into the family. While there are no current plans, its a platform with different individual, consumer-facing brands, and that gives it the opportunity to grow by bringing additional brands into the family.
While Leverton is just getting started in the fitness industry, he’s looking forward to what the future holds for the new brand and is motivated to lead Purpose Brands into further success one franchisee at a time.
“I think the most important people we have in our company are the ones who interact with the members themselves in the club, and the second most important people are the people that support those people directly,” said Leverton. “In many ways you could argue that my job is the least important in the company, and in many ways it should be. My job has some very important parts, but if I can help build a culture where we’re delivering experience on the front lines to our franchisees so they can deliver the experience to the member, then my job is being executed well. I will sleep a happy man.”
