Issue link: http://endeavor.uberflip.com/i/971013
GIGLIOLA AYCARDI BATISTA Colombia, BODYTECH Bodytech Corporation, the second-largest gym company in Latin America and the number 22 in the world fitness industry, co-founded by Endeavor Entrepreneurs Nicolas Loaiza Galeano and Gigliola Aycardi Batista. Bodytech has more than 170 locations in Colombia, Peru and Chile. Its offer includes full service gyms (via the Bodytech & Sportlife brands), high performance gyms (Bodytech Sports Medicine), gyms for kids (Bodytech Active Kids) and Life Fitness gym products sold for personal and commercial use. Bodytech is focused on building full-service gym locations with offerings such as advanced cardio and weight training, group classes from indoor cycling to pilates and yoga, swimming pools, and sauna services. In addition, Bodytech has a network of sports medical doctors, physiotherapists and nutritionists to provide integrated health services to its members. Since its founding in 1997, the company has experienced rapid growth in major metropolitan markets across Latin America. Bodytech has approximately 290,000 customers and has continued to grow its annual revenues in recent years (USD 120 millions). Bodytech positioned itself as a Medical Sports Center rather than merely a gym, reflecting the founders' belief in offering individually tailored exercise programs based on medical analysis. During her career as an entrepreneur she has been awarded with Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Colombia in 2014, and was nominated along with her partner Nicolás Loaiza to the World Entrepreneur of the Year award in Monaco in June 2015 (both awards from Ernst and Young). Her advice for success is: Work, work and work; Fight for the dreams; not accept a "NO" as an answer and all this supported by the confidence and belief of each one's ideas. "Entrepreneurship is synonymous with hard work. Nothing is achieved without effort, the path of entrepreneurship means more work, more effort ". In addition to saying that "Luck does exist but they deliver it at 5 am. Everyday". If I were to spend the rest of my life solving a problem would be how to get out of poverty to millions of Latin Americans who live under that line today, I think the initial solution is education, so I am very motivated now that I belong to the board of directors of the EAN, which is a university that seeks to promote entrepreneurship in young people from the low-middle social strata of Colombia. I am relentless in my pursuit of health through exercise, since we founded Bodytech we believe that exercise is that magic pill that improves the quality of life of people, which reduces illness, prevents cancer, improves stress, generates endorphins that are the hormones of the happiness and we have 20 years in the quest to improve the quality of life through exercise, we want that in 2020 more than a million people improve their health and their quality of life with us.