Heather Frankham - Executive Chairman

Heather Frankham founded leading training provider, Lifetime, in 1995. Following the successful delivery of the first apprenticeship in the leisure sector, Heather continued to grow and adapt the business to meet the needs of the active leisure industry. Combining business and teaching qualifications together with a wealth of experience in training and education, as Executive Chairman of Lifetime, Heather continues to oversee the strategic aspects of the business.

An additional Inspector for Ofsted, Heather is also a Patron of SkillsActive (Sector Skills Council for Active Leisure and Learning). In addition, she is a member of the Fitness Industry Association (FIA) Vanguard Council and the Association of Learning Providers (ALP). More recently Heather was appointment as a FIA Board Director.

Heather holds a BEd (Hons) degree in Physical Education and Mathematics and studied Exercise and Health Science (MSc) at Bristol University. Before setting up Lifetime, Heather enjoyed a teaching career in primary and secondary education and headed up the development of the fitness brand within the Whitbread Hotel Company leisure division.

David Foster - Chief Executive Officer

David joined Lifetime in April 2009 after seven successful years with Virgin Mobile, helping to shape its key service operations from launch through FTSE listing, and eventual £965m sale to ntl: Telewest .

As Customer Service Director, David was responsible for the development and delivery of all aspects of Virgin Mobile’s award-winning customer service. Leading a diverse operation including large-scale call centre operations, training and development, billing, and customer retention, his service team gained recognition from the likes of Which? and JD Power, and won the industry’s Mobile Choice ‘Best Service’ award for an unprecedented seven years.

Prior to joining Virgin Mobile, David worked at direct marketing agency, EHS Brann. In his role as Brann's Director of Telemarketing he was responsible for the sales, client service and call centre operations and more specifically for the design and implementation of a range of direct and telemarketing programmes for organisations such as Barclays Bank, the Central Office of Information and several of the privatised utilities. David also played an important role in supporting the launches of Orange, and Microsoft's Windows 95. Before joining Brann, David had spent his early career in software development and recruitment.

At both Virgin Mobile and Brann, David worked for organisations experiencing high levels of growth, and he has utilised that experience to help Lifetime achieve the growth that has seen them feature as a Sunday Times Fast Track 100 business for two years running.

Peter Mitchell - Financial Director

Peter joined Lifetime in November 09 as Finance Director. Immediately prior to his appointment Peter was CFO at James Hull Associates, a UK wide dental practice operator, in which role he helped drive the growth of the business from 32 practices to 72. In the role of CFO Peter played a central part in the sale of the business to an external private equity investor.

Prior to joining James Hull Associates, Peter worked at international food hygiene consultancy and web advertising business CheckSafetyFirst, as well as the highly successful business service provider PHS Group.  In his role as Business Development Manager, Peter managed both pre-and post acquisition aspects of the extensive bolt-on acquisition strategy pursued by PHS Group. At both James Hull Associates and PHS Group, Peter worked for organisations experiencing high growth rates predominantly through significant acquisition, and he brings extensive experience of corporate transactions in service sector businesses to Lifetime.

Iain Beadle - Commercial Director

Iain joined Lifetime in March 2010 as a Board Director and has overall responsibility for all aspects of sales, business development, key accounts and marketing activity for Lifetime.

Prior to joining Lifetime Iain spent five years as Sales and Marketing Director at Computershare Voucher Services, specialising in the delivery of childcare vouchers in the employee benefits space.  During this time Iain assisted in growing the company from £50-£300 million pushing Computershare Voucher Services into the market leader position.

To add to this impressive track record, Iain has worked in a variety of senior sales and marketing roles within the B2C, B2B and B2R markets. Iain has worked for organisations such as Pitney Bowes, Kyocera and Ricoh as well as in the FMCG and services arena, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Lifetime business.

Nigel Wallace - Development Director

Nigel joined Lifetime in February 2009 as Director of Training having worked independently for the previous four years as a consultant to the sector and director of two highly successful B2B events, SIBEC and SPATEC. Nigel’s industry experience also includes a period of five years as Executive Director of the Fitness Industry Association (FIA) and three years contracted to adidas. With a background in education, Nigel initially worked as a PE teacher for special needs children and following his MSc in Exercise and Health Science from the University of Bristol, was a lecturer on BSc and vocational courses in the leisure industry.

In June 2011 Nigel moved into a new position as Development Director to reflect the significant growth Lifetime has achieved within the Fitness and Leisure sector. This new role focuses Nigel’s attention upon the relationships, products, services and delivery within this core area of Lifetime’s activity. 

Michelle Hyatt – Operations Director

Michelle joined Lifetime in 2008 and was appointed Operations Director in January 2011. Since joining the business she has been instrumental in significantly growing and developing Lifetime’s skills programmes. Michelle is responsible for the delivery of all government funded apprenticeship and skills contracts, as well as our commercial teaching arm.

Michelle has worked in the fitness, leisure and hospitality industries for over 20 years in both public and private sector organisations and is passionate about delivering first class training to our learners to enable them to meet their full potential and achieve their goals.

Rich Belbin - IT Director

Rich joined Lifetime in Feb 2011 and was appointed IT Director in August 2011.

Rich clocked up 15 years financial services experience in customer service, marketing, sales and training, before moving into technology in the mid 90s. After six years at Orange he moved to Three, back to Orange and finally Virgin Mobile where he was responsible for IT delivery. Since Virgin Mobile he has held a couple of interim roles in facilities management and technology.

With a solid business grounding Rich is responsible for our technology thought leadership and leading the transformation of our technology systems.

Bob Paton - Non-Executive Director

Bob has been involved in the sport and leisure sector for over 30 years and was a founder of Crossland Leisure, one of the UK’s first leisure management companies, which ran over 30 sports centres. Bob was also the first Executive Director of the Fitness Industry Association (FIA) and led the organisation in its first seven years. Bob has been involved with Lifetime for eight years and has helped with the development of the company over that time. Bob is now a Non-Executive Director of the company and also takes responsibility for Lifetime Awarding, an awarding organisation established in 2009.

Patrick Henchoz - Non-Executive Director

Patrick was founder and Managing Director of Esporta from its creation in 1989 until its flotation in 2000, with approximately 40 clubs and 200,000 members. His career has also been spent in leisure and hospitality with De Vere Hotels and Whitbread.

In 2001-2003 Patrick took time out to travel around the world with his family, and since then has become involved in five companies as an investor, Non-Executive Director or both. These include Gymbox (fitness clubs) in London, Promote PR, a house building company in Hereford, Certainly Wood (the largest provider of kiln dried wood in the UK), and Lifetime.

Patrick has been involved with Lifetime since April 2009 with a brief to help the company with its strategic growth plans and execution.