Sarah Robb O’Hagan, who has held executive roles at several high-profile fitness brands, is back in a leadership role at another fitness brand after being named CEO of EXOS, the Phoenix-based company announced.
O’Hagan had been advising the company’s board since September 2019. She moved into the CEO role after former CEO Dan Burns stepped down to help his wife battle brain cancer. Burns will remain on the EXOS board of directors.
“Sarah is at the top of her game professionally, while personally embodying the core values our team deeply respects,” Mark Verstegen, founder and president of EXOS, said in the announcement. “Her leadership will guide us to bring the EXOS brand to many more people striving to be their beset. We’re very fortunate to transition from one great leader to another.”
O’Hagan previously held leadership positions at Nike and Virgin Atlantic Airways. She also served as global president of Gatorade.
In August 2012, she joined Equinox as global president, leaving in 2016 to write a book, “Extreme You: Step Up. Stand Out. Kick Ass. Repeat.” She also launched an accompanying content platform.
She joined Flywheel Sports in early 2017 as its CEO. While there, the company introduced new performance bikes in its studios and released an at-home bike with a streaming content platform in an effort to appeal to athletic fitness consumers, O’Hagan said at the time. (In 2018 and 2019, Peloton and Flywheel filed lawsuits against each other over patent infringement claims related to Flywheel’s Fly Anywhere bikes and Flywheel investor Michael Milkens' alleged misrepresentation of himself to Peloton CEO John Foley. The two companies settled the lawsuits this week, a month after Flywheel was purchased by Town Sports International.)
O’Hagan has been named as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business and as one of Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in Sports. She is on the boards of Strava and JetBlue, and she is a trustee emeritus of The Women’s Sports Foundation.
“I am truly honored to receive the baton from such a beloved leader as Dan, who has built a company of such incredible talent and a culture of such humility and integrity,” O’Hagan said in the announcement. “My passion, my career and my writing have always been about helping others unleash their potential. It’s so fun to find a team that gets fired up about this the same way I do. EXOS has led the industry in their ability to help consumers, from elite athletes to everyday performers, to achieve their highest ambitions. We have big plans for the coming years to allow even more folks to tap into this proven system.”
O’Hagan will be based in New York, but EXOS’s headquarters will remain in Phoenix.
Founded in 1999, EXOS has more than 600 locations worldwide. It ranked No. 11 on the 2019 Club Industry Top 100 Clubs list with $182.59 million in 2018 revenue.