Is that he made his employees and members get vaxxed a plus of his credentials?

Well, he summited Everest, so there is that....................

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Sure it does, means he is smart and has empathy for his clients health and well being. And that he can cut through the political bull shit and make good decisions for his company too. Running a big company is not a democracy, and hard choices have to be made by just one person often..

I wish him all the luck, kind of wish he came from our ranks, but sometimes outside can be good too...

+1 Monty

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tinman

Thanks, I thought Ryan wrote the article, guess not. I respect your take on what it means, but I’d argue he went WITH the political bull shit, not cut through it.

I do agree it’s a business and someone, or some people, need to make hard decisions to what is right, just hope the company you are working for has a smart person or people at the helm. Last, I don’t care if he was a triathlete, I care more about what he has done and HOW he did things.

It's neither a plus or a minus of his credentials. It exists.

I'd make the argument that he made the best decision for his business at the time, given who his clientele is and what they do. You're welcome to disagree with that.

Ultimately I'd like to get him on the podcast and see what the hell happens. But that probably isn't going to happen in Week 1 on the job.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I'm going to go to the now viral podcast with Aaron Lutze ala Red Bull marketing https://www.youtube.com/...x60xDjgk&t=1758s I do care about your past and what you have done. But tell me now, how are you going to make the experience better, what are your ideas today. Thats what I want to know as "we" should want to know. Better race coverage? lower fees, more swag, increased coverage without cost increase, tell us more!

Hey Ryan, thanks, appreciate the honest response.

Looking forward, as I assume most are, to learning about him as a person and what he has done and where he will take IM moving forward.

There's no vaccine for entrenched anti-science. Describing a requirement to get a vaccine as political bullshit is ironic given the widespread use of HRMs, power meters and supplements. Of all people triathletes should back the science.
Scott DeRue seems like a great choice just as Monty said.

Interesting!

I'm a little surprised to see an outsider take the role, not a VP in waiting somewhere in the Ironman organization.

Also Interesting he comes from a fitness center background. I'm curious if we'll see some tighter gym associations with Ironman in the future. If they are hoping to grow their customer base, that's probably the best clientele to pick -- people already committed or addicted to paying to exercise.

But I wonder if the fact that he's a big runner has more to say about the future of Ironman (ie UTMB etc race development).

Regarding the covid stuff, the guy was managing a business which was being shut down due to panic over spreading covid. I don't blame anyone for panicking about covid, but as we've seen the widespread vaccination campaigns didn't really have the effect the smart people all group-thought. (Ie, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan cases skyrocketed ad soon as a largely vaccinated population opened up). So his shot policy was due to misunderstanding about the vaccines capabilities (some might say misinformation).

Even knowing what we know now, the socio political situation still wasn't exactly easy. I'm sure global gyms like this were ready to bend the knee and kiss any rings necessary to open up and avoid closure. Hard to really fault people for not taking a futile stand with investor money.

I do smile and tremble a little at the people who think the lessons to learn from the pandemic is to just be even more totalitarian and do it even faster as well next time. More was done than ever before in mankind's history, the global economy is still reeling. Workforce and productivity damaged for a likely generation. Supply chains overloaded and fractured or broken. Countless health and mental health affects. And some people think we just next to do more of the same but harder and faster "next time".

Hopefully DeRue isn't that sort, but if he is he's in good company.

i read from the st article that he worked in luxury lifestyle that could give you an indication about lower fees.

Litigating the Covid vax issue in 2024 is like talking about the weather or someone’s golf game—about the most boring and tedious conversation someone can have.

I’m sick of hearing from both the don’t-tread-on-me type, and the I’m-still-wearing-a-mask-outside type. Just STFU with this topic and move on.

Precisely my take too.

The everest reference I find interesting.
You don't get onto Everest these days without coughing up a big wedge of $$$ - it's not the pioneering days of Bonnington, Boardman, Scott, Haston, Tasker etc. It's a big expensive $$$-centred business with big expensive fees to pay to play.

There are a lot of similiarities to draw between current Everest climbs and current Ironman.
At the pointy end there are some amazing athletes and skills.

Both also have a similar attraction to people who have not done the training, don't have the experience from less challenging events / mountains, and are woefully prepared and a liability when the conditions change for the worse.

But it makes Ironman costs look like chicken feed for a 1-and-done event.

i would like to comment that iam not ok that our new ceo does not wear an ironman t shit in the pic of the front page article

All due respect to the other podcasts out there the one I do want to hear him being interviewed by is The Triathlon Hour with Jack.

The other podcasts will certainly tee him up with BS questions. I don’t want to hear anyone jerk this guy off. lol doesn’t sound right but true..

DeRue is a heavyweight in the field of organizational behavior, and still actively publishing: https://scholar.google.com/...s&sortby=pubdate

I've actually never seen someone in a full professor and dean position go into a CEO role - it actually looks like he was president of Equinox while simultaneously a dean at U of Michigan. Prior to his academic career, he was in private equity, so that experience and his expertise in leadership and high-performing teams looks pretty interesting to me.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

There is a press release here: https://www.linkedin.com/...7157839861096370176/

Rest assured that his role is to grow the brand (inflate the value, no matter the cost), nothing more!

Where the North American race calendar has been cut down to almost nothing now (compared to 10 years ago) - one may wonder where the owners (Advance & Orkila) are looking to find this growth, in the next 3-5 years (before they sell the brand again) ?

I agree with you. The more that comes out about all the adverse effects and how utterly ineffective the shots were, I'm glad I never took them and I never will.

Other people want to do it, more power to you. But I will not work for anybody that tries to force me to be an unwilling participant in an experiment.

"heavyweight" is a big stretch. let's not get carried away here.

this is an oddball hire. he is an academic and my experience is that academics fail miserably in the real world (hence, why they stay in academia). it looks like he dabbled in consulting for a few years after getting his phd and has been in academia since 2007. his private equity work looks like nothing more than a side hustle a lot of professors do to make more money. it's not like he was a partner at apollo or kkr. he stepped down from his academic jobs in 2021 to take the president job at equinox. i am very curious how equinox has done in the last 3 years (i have heard that they have bounced back well from the covid closures but i don't know if that's right). i belonged to equinox for nearly 20 years (i quit in 2019 after an enormous monthly increase even though i only used the gyms sporadically and belong to another better gym) and they had a great product but had expanded too much. he comes across as a self-promoter who brags about things that people in the know know are not that impressive but those types tend to have success in life (at least initially).

i do think that IM is a mess so an outsidef-the-box hire might be what is needed to fix things. i wish him well and hope and he can right the ship because it needs righting.

I would say they are more than likely looking outside triathlon. Sure looks like Ironman is on the road to attempting a classical brand evolution - take historical equity and sprinkle it on adjacent, or non-adjacent business models. Ironman becomes a luxury lifestyle brand, with branded experiences that challenge you to go beyond what you think possible.... "whatever that means".

Sure, that's still Kona. Or UTMB. Or new gravel series. But could that be a $3K a night expedition in Patagonia?

Or...

Has anyone seen what the private equity owners of Sports Illustrated are doing? They're firing all the journalists and investing in high-end experiential resorts: https://siresorts.com/.

The currency today is about access.

Or maybe not. Sure seems like where this is heading, though.

Fyre Fest by Ironman

Indeed - Ironman racing is a dead horse, from a growth perspective.

If you look at a (3 months old) achievement from Scott DeRue at EQX, this smells a lot more like: Digital, Personal Wellbeing, Longevity

Yes, an "academic", but in the business school realm, which has not been IMs past. Hopefully a person versed in business as opposed to the other backgrounds will have some good insights long lost at IM.

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Kiwami Racing Team

Well, he is not a triathlete so he hasn't finished an IM, therefore he has not earned the privilege....................

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.