INTERVIEW
BARBARA DEN BAK While the boutique fitness scene is booming in the US and UK, it remains in its infancy in the Netherlands. Regardless, the co-founder of High Studios has high hopes for the sector and tells Kate Cracknell that success rests on getting the model right What’s your background?
I worked in a number of media and advertising agencies in Amsterdam before moving into the fitness industry. I’d toyed with the idea of becoming a PT for years because I really wanted to make a difference in people’s lives – and that certainly isn’t what the advertising world is about! In 2008, I qualified as a personal trainer and in the same year launched my first fitness company. It was an outdoor fitness concept called The Bootcamp Club. I invested six years in that business, which was an amazing period. We got into that market early and the company grew tremendously, with new regional franchises and spin-offs. But after six years I needed a fresh, creative challenge, so I sold my stake in the company in 2014.
How did High Studios come about?
I’d been following the boutique fi tness trend since 2013. It’s such a fascinating market and yet, to date, it really hasn’t established itself in the Netherlands – even though there are currently a lot of popular innovative fi tness concepts in Amsterdam’s fi tness scene. After selling my Bootcamp company, I bumped into my current business partner Han Doorenbosch, who owns TrainMore and ClubSportive in the Netherlands. We saw an opportunity to fill the gap between the big budget operators and the smaller personal training businesses here in Holland. With this in mind, we teamed up to launch High Studios and we opened our first site in Amsterdam in March 2016.
High Studios was designed with a Millennial audience in mind, and offers a variety of class types to keep them engaged
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