“I have known Eric Levine for over 20 years and as one of the leading entrepreneurs of the fitness industry, I have been able to watch at first hand his brilliance and expertise. From site selection, lease negotiations, sales and marketing to club design, innovation, and amazing core sale success, Eric Levine has done it all. His legacy will always be his ability to find amazing sites in countries and markets that others do not see and turn them in to tremendous successes. He is the best of the best.”
“I have known Eric Levine and have partnered with Eric for almost 25 years. Eric and I worked together at my “Ray Wilson Family Fitness Centers” in Western America and he was a regional partner in Northern California starting in 1992. Immediately, Eric began breaking all of my companies records in gross, dues and many other categories. Eric set the standard and raised the bar much higher for the rest of the 72 clubs we had. After I sold “Ray Wilson Family Fitness Centers” to “24 Hour Fitness” Eric and I founded “Ray Wilson California Centers” in Hong Kong and Singapore and again he broke every record in the fitness industry. Eric went on to open up in Taiwan, Korea and Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and China (we did part of Taiwan together). Eric is proficient at almost every aspect of the fitness industry. As a founder and owner he had to do it all, finances, motivation, locations, negotiations, sales, branding, marketing, every layer of the fitness industry. I consider Eric to be one of the best marketing, public relations and sales people in the history of our industry (I am very happy to give this testimonial as Eric and i were fantastic partners).
In all of the three companies that I stiil had in the US. after selling Family Fitness Centers, I had no one that would have had any real chance of tackling Asia successfully (and no one even wanted to try), except John Franklin “as a manager” who we brought over to Asia to open our 2nd Hong Kong club and John went on to manage all of Singapore. Eric and myself were 50 /50 partners; Eric did such a great job that when we sold our Asia clubs I voluntarily gave Eric one million dollars more then I kept. That is the first time in my long career that I ever did anything like that. Eric did such i great job that he deserved that reward and also I didn’t spend the amount of time in Asia that I had agreed (without Eric i would have very been lucky to have got half or less of what I received from my Asia venture). “
“Eric Levine is one of the most prolific club operators in the fitness industry who has broken international barriers by building one of the most successful club chains in Asia. His experience extends from operations, finance, real estate to marketing and brand building. There are few people in the industry with Eric’s level of knowledge when it comes to the club business.”
“I was very fortunate to meet and work for Eric from 1996-2003. In 1996, Eric built the most incredible fitness centre in Central, Hong Kong. This club in Lan Kwai Fong was the template and benchmark for all health clubs around the world at that time and for many years thereafter. It was Eric’s concept, vision and dream and it was absolutely incredible. It wasn’t the cutting edge design, luxurious materials and fixtures or the state of the art equipment that made Eric’s model unique. Eric harnessed and combined the power of people, passion, success and teamwork and generated energy that was nuclear. The results and experience were amazing – incredible growth, an aspirational brand and most notably business results and profitability never seen before in this industry. In the space of 5 years Eric built a 13 club fitness chain, operating in 5 countries with 150,000 members, turning over US$100million annually, employing over 1000 staff – that means he created 1000 jobs and careers in those new markets. One particular club in Taiwan had 21,000 members and a monthly dues tap of US$2million – yes, that’s monthly. These numbers were never, ever seen before in the industry and I don’t think have ever been repeated – this was Eric’s company, and it was a privilege to be a part of it. Eric developed many leaders in his time who today are the CEOs, directors and Owners of many successful businesses in Asia and around the world. Eric not only pioneered the Fitness industry in Asia, he also revolutionised the yoga and lifestyle business models. Eric bought Yoga from rural India to all of the big cities in Asia, and conceptualised the 5 star Yoga centre experience. Eric is an incredible entrepreneur, a master of business, marketing, branding and leadership. In 2016 I started my own company, 20 years after first meeting Eric. I still recall and remember on a daily basis lessons, concepts and ways working and thinking that I learned from Eric. He was the master, and I am forever thankful for the years I had, learning from and being mentored by Eric. I strongly recommend that anyone, any team or company operating in the Fitness, Health, Wellbeing and Lifestyle industries engage and learn from Eric Levine if they have the chance.”
