Standards Council Members

The seats on the Standards Council were held by named representatives of the parts of the sector with an interest in the standards: higher education, vocational education and training, the accreditation bodies and the suppliers, alongside the council's officers and members drawn from operators and training providers.

• Chair: Professor Alfonso Jiménez, PhD, CSCS, *D; NSCA-CPT, *D
• Vice-Chair: Irene van Geest
• Chair of the TEG Leaders: Jean Sadouni
• Higher Education representative: Silvano Zanuso, PhD
• Vocational Education and Training representative: Laszlo Zapcsak, MSc, BS
• Accreditation organisations representative: Debra Stewart
• Suppliers representative: Arron Williams

The council also sat with members who were not attached to a particular constituency, and with an observer from outside Europe.

• Andreas Paulsen, Fit&Sund, Denmark
• Winfried Hostenkamp, Oase GmbH Health & Sports Club, Germany
• Xavier Martins Dias, Akademia Training, The Netherlands
• Cedric Bryant, PhD, ACE (USA), Chief Science Officer, attending as an observer

EHFA also operated with a Scientific Advisory Board of notable academics, available to provide additional resources and context for the working of the Standards Council. Its chair was Professor Willem Van Mechelen, chair of the steering committee of HEPA Europe at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, from the Vrije University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Professor Alfonso Jiménez was head of the Centre for Sports Sciences & Human Performance in the School of Science at the University of Greenwich in London. He held a PhD in physiology and a bachelor's degree in exercise sciences, professional accreditations as CSCS and NSCA-CPT, and postdoctoral training at Arizona State University. He had previously held a professorial position in exercise sciences at the European University of Madrid, where he led a master's degree and a PhD programme in physical activity and health, and before his academic career he worked for more than ten years in the fitness industry as a general manager and programme director.

Irene van Geest studied language, literature and mass communication at the University of Nijmegen and social psychology at the University of Amsterdam, and worked as a teacher, journalist and copywriter before specialising as a senior consultant in crisis communication and the development of communication strategies. She was nominated Director of Public Information at the Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport in 1996, and later worked at European level as a risk communication adviser and deputy communication director at the European Food Safety Authority in Parma. She was carrying out research for a PhD at the University of Twente.

Jean Sadouni had been a professional judo athlete for more than ten years, on the Belgian Olympic team, and trained in exercise physiology and nutrition in California in 1989. He worked as a consultant running training seminars for Gold's Gym in Belgium, where he had been a personal trainer since 1990, and also worked in California, New York and Paris. In 1997 he created Fit & Well Concept, a company specialising in coaching people to integrate physical activity into their lives, and he was a consultant on personal training for Fitness First in Belgium and a PT Academy master trainer for Europe.

Dr Silvano Zanuso held a PhD in exercise physiology, an MSc by research in sports psychology, an MSc in kinesiology and a bachelor's degree in movement sciences. His research focused on the effects of exercise in people with metabolic disorders. He was a contract professor at the University of Padua in Italy and director of the medical scientific department at Technogym.

Laszlo Zapcsak held a PhD and was chief executive and founder of the International Wellness Institute in Hungary, a training provider with programmes in Hungary, Slovakia, Russia and Poland. He held a bachelor's degree in exercise sciences and an MSc in research, and completed his PhD in sports science at the Universidad Europea de Madrid.

Debra Stewart was chief executive of Premier Global, a training provider in the United Kingdom and Europe, and of Active IQ, Premier's accreditation body. She had spent thirty years in health and fitness education within the leisure industry and had played a part in the development of national occupational standards and qualifications in the United Kingdom, consulting for organisations including SkillsActive and the Register of Exercise Professionals.

Arron Williams had been manager of the Life Fitness Academy and was manager of customer solutions for Life Fitness in the EMEA region, where he worked with sales and marketing teams to analyse changing competitive factors and industry trends. He held a bachelor's degree in sports science and an MSc in sports psychology. The council's remit and the work it directed are described on the Standards Council page.