In 2015 I was posted on exchange to the USA Special Forces for a year. Within the first month of my arrival I linked up with some friends in LA and took my first Barry’s Bootcamp class at the West Hollywood Studio - that I was to learn was the OG Barry’s studio opened in 1998. That Barry’s class was actually the first time I had sprinted since snapping my Patella Tendon in March 2014, and it’s safe to say that I was very impressed with the Barry’s concept and culture - the committed and likeminded people that it brought together in and out of the Red Room.
I took many more classes that year and formed some strong friendships with some of the trainers and staff across the USA. Shortly after I returned to Australia in 2016, I started dating Blake who was an instructor at the Barry’s West Hollywood studio. In 2017, when I returned from my deployment to Iraq, I took my long service leave and relocated to LA to be with Blake, where I also found myself becoming contracted as the Director of Global Studio Expansion at the Barry’s Corporate office in LA, and in this role I was responsible for supporting the opening of new Barry’s studios in Stockholm, Toronto, Atlanta, Dallas and Washington DC.
During 2017, Barry’s Corporate opened up franchising rights to Australia, and after a protracted screening process, Blake and myself were successful in being selected to lead the expansion of Barry’s to Australia. The plan changed a little along the way, and we ended up leading the expansion to Barry’s to Australia and Singapore - after I negotiated a partnership with the Fitness and Lifestyle Group (FLG) who acquired the Master Franchise rights to the wider Asia-Pacific region.
in australia
building basecamp
Blake and I relocated to Sydney and set about the launch strategy in quick time. We converted a warehouse down near the Sydney airport into our ‘Basecamp’ training facility, where we screened over 300 applicants to select and train the top team.
We then took our Founding Instructors to the USA to complete the Founding Instructor Training Program, two weeks of daily training and brand culture immersion between New York City and Los Angeles - with many adventures along the way.
My role was to oversee the building of Barry’s Australia and Singapore in every way: Site selection, Studio design, Fit-out details and fixture selection, staff selection and training, through to support the marketing, socials, events, media and all the big personalities along the way.
in the media
Surry Hills, September 2018
Our first studio
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martin place, november 2018
Largest barry's studio on earth
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in singapore
Studio number three
Building Barry’s Singapore was quite the mission that required plenty of trips and time spent searching and meeting people from all walks of life. This was all concurrent to the building of Barry’s Sydney and also searching for sites in Melbourne. Barry’s Raffles Place was our studio number three, right in the heart of the Singapore financial district.
Our Singapore Founding Instructors were also sent to the USA for their training and returned to help launch the studio in May 2019.
in the media
Sydney & melbourne, June 2019
More studios in the making
After launching Barry’s Singapore it was straight back to open Barry’s Kings Cross in June. The studio was literally across the road from where we lived and I had been working on obtaining the site for over a year prior to finally getting it built. By this time we had also selected and commenced leases on two Barry’s studio locations in Melbourne, with designs and instructor recruitment underway, - gearing up for our Barry’s Melbourne launch a few months later in 2019.
in the media
Heston left Barry’s in 2019 and maintains his Management Equity Shareholdings in the Fitness and Lifestyle Group