Equinox President Sarah Robb O'Hagan has left the company to start a new venture.
On Monday, O'Hagan announced that Friday was her last day with Equinox as she is moving on from her "dream job" to pursue writing her new book, "EXTREMEYOU," and to launch an accompanying content platform of the same name.
"The decision to move on from my dream job running Equinox, the world’s top luxury fitness company, was one of the toughest I’ve ever made," O'Hagan wrote in a posting on EXTREMEYOU.com and on LinkedIn's Pulse. "Simply put – the Equinox team is family to me, and it is their energy and commitment to making people’s lives better that has inspired me to see I can do even more."
EXTREMEYOU is based on O'Hagan's experience along with personal stories of a collection of over-achieving, high-profile "extremers" from all walks of life, O'Hagan wrote. The book, published by HarperCollins, is expected to publish in early 2017.
The content platform will have inspirational and educational articles, along with programs, tools, workshops and experiences for all "extremers," O'Hagan wrote. The platform, which O'Hagan formed with former Atari executive Lauren Schectman, is set to launch in the second half of this year, according to a Fortune report.
O'Hagan told Fortune that the inspiration for the content platform came while she was working on the book and discovered the insights from it would be helpful to young professionals beginning their careers.
"Nothing inspires me more than the pace of innovation that exists in business and society today – driven by the awesome young minds who can see opportunities that their predecessors didn’t, and who more importantly have the imagination and real desire to improve the world we live in," O'Hagan wrote. "At the same time, I am becoming more and more concerned that we have simply not equipped these young people to reach their huge potential."
O'Hagan was hired as Equinox president in August 2012 after spending four years as president at Gatorade. Prior to Gatorade, she was the marketing director at Nike from 2002 to 2008, the vice president of marketing at Atari Interactive from 2000 to 2002, the director of marketing at Virgin Atlantic from 1998 to 2000 and the marketing manager at Air New Zealand from 1993 to 1998, according to her LinkedIn profile. Her title at EXTREMEYOU is founder and chief extremer.
"I’ve always believed you should break yourself to make yourself, because real personal growth happens in our discomfort zones," O'Hagan wrote. "While leaving a great job and an amazing team who I tremendously respect and utterly adore is scary and lonely - I know that now is one of those times when I need to walk my own talk because I believe I am walking towards the most exciting and valuable work of my life."