Phillip Mills is one of the pioneers of the international fitness industry and a driving force behind the popularization of the modern group exercise experience.
Phillip was born into an athletic family in Auckland, New Zealand in 1955. His father, Les, competed at four Olympic Games in the shot put and discus and his mother, Colleen, was a New Zealand representative in the Commonwealth Games 400 meters at the age of 41.
Phillip was a Commonwealth Games 400 meters hurdles finalist in 1974 and won a track scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated in philosophy in 1978.
On returning to New Zealand, he took an increasing role in the Les Mills fitness club business founded by Les and Colleen in 1968.
The Les Mills business floated on the stock market in 1987 and was taken over by an investment company just before the 1987 crash. The investment company folded and Phillip and his wife, Jackie, progressively bought the business back.
There are now ten Les Mills clubs in New Zealand with 45,000 members, of which the Les Mills World of Fitness in central Auckland is the largest, with 12,000 members.
Inspired by the aerobics boom he had witnessed in the USA, Phillip developed his own exercise-to-music system that would later grow to include the eight group fitness programs currently distributed by Les Mills International. Based on an assurance of quality achieved through pre-choreography and a revolutionary system for training instructors, the programs are now distributed to more than 10,500 fitness clubs in over 70 countries, with an estimated 4 million participants a week.
Phillip Mills also developed the Les Mills Group Fitness Management system that supports the operation of the Les Mills programs in clubs.
In 2004 Phillip was named New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year by the professional services firm, Ernst & Young (pictured right with wife Jackie and parents Colleen and Les), and was a judge at the 2006 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Monte Carlo.
Phillip is married to Dr Jackie Mills, a medical practitioner and program director for the LES MILLS™ mind-body program, BODYFLOW™. They live in Auckland with their two children, Les and Diana.