Kerry Knee has revolutionized women’s fitness with a chain of exercise and entertainment studios, called Flirty Girl Fitness, which she opened in partnership with her sister, Krista Knee. Born in Newfoundland, Kerry spent most of her upbringing in Halifax before moving to Toronto, and now Chicago where she just opened the flagship US Flirty Girl Fitness location.
An MBA graduate from Concordia University in Montreal, Kerry had 12 years of experience working with business start ups, focusing on marketing, business development and product development for both large and small companies before deciding to launch her own business. Prior to Flirty Girl Fitness, Kerry’s specialty was in taking industry-first products to market and forming partnerships with Fortune 500 companies like HP, Microsoft, Pfizer, Merck, and Sanofi-Aventis. Kerry’s executive experience has spanned a variety of business sectors and includes such product launches as: a sales force effectiveness program for the pharmaceutical industry, a consumer ASP application for a leading communications company, a human resources enterprise wide management application, an oncology interactive education program for hospital networks, an online pharmaceutical community network for a government run physical portal, and a grassroots training and marketing program professional sports team.
Kerry’s move into fitness began in 2005 after watching an episode of Oprah with Desperate Housewives’ Terri Hatcher demonstrating a sexy workout class using a pole. Kerry thought it looked fun and wanted to try it, but she couldn’t find any classes available outside of CA. Because Kerry couldn’t find anywhere to learn the work out, she bought a pole and taught herself. She loved it so much that she talked her sister Krista into leaving a management IT position in Halifax to join her in Toronto to develop and launch Flirty Girl Fitness.
Today, Kerry and her sister, who were finalists at the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, have more than 125 employees at their two studios and plan to open dozens more studios across Canada and the U.S. The sisters have also designed and manufactured their own removable fitness pole and produced a series of instructional fitness videos which have been run in nationally syndicated infomercials across the US since January 2009 and are being test markets in several countries around the world. Kerry and her sister further built on their success by designing and creating a full Flirty Girl Fitness apparel line which launches in October 2009.
To learn more about Kerry and Flirty Girl Fitness visit Flirty Girl Fitness Online. Check back soon to learn more about other Chic Gem Gals and to hear our latest news about Chic Gems, Etc.
All the very best,
Sarah Radford
Designer
Designer Jewelry for Professional Women
Posts
