Mindbody has announced that Fritz Lanman will become the company’s new CEO from 3 September 2022. He will succeed Josh McCarter who will join Mindbody’s board of directors.

When Mindbody acquired fitness membership platform ClassPass last October, with Lanman as CEO, McCarter led the combined business – founder Payal Kadakia exited – while Lanman became president of ClassPass and Mindbody Marketplace.

Lanman has been involved with ClassPass since 2014, leading its seed and Series A fundraising, before becoming CEO in 2017. Josh McCarter joined Mindbody as chief strategy officer in 2018, following the company’s acquisition of B2B business management platform Booker, of which he was co-founder and CEO. He was announced as president of Mindbody in 2019 and took over as CEO in August 2020 when founder and existing CEO Rick Stollmeyer moved to become executive chair.

“It’s the right time to pass the baton to Fritz who will lead Mindbody through this next chapter,” said McCarter. “Fritz’s tech and entrepreneurial background and his CEO experience, make him the perfect fit to lead Mindbody and ClassPass.”

Lanman graduated from Yale and started his career at Microsoft where he went on to specialise in M&A evaluations and strategy. He worked on several notable deals, including Microsoft’s multi-million-dollar investment in Facebook. After founding and selling Livestar, a mobile recommendations startup, he became an angel investor in ClassPass – and other companies such as Pinterest and Wish – for Lanman Ventures and Acecap.

“I'm excited to build on the strong foundation the company has built over the years and bring new approaches to help accelerate our growth and deliver greater value for wellness business owners and wellness enthusiasts alike,” said Lanman. “There's tremendous opportunity in the wellness industry right now and Mindbody is poised to capitalise on market changes and challenges.”

When ClassPass and Mindbody merged last year, it benefited from a US$500m investment from Sixth Street. In February 2022, ClassPass demonstrated recovery from COVID-19 by reporting more reservations than in February 2020. One month later, Mindbody launched Mindbody Capital to support client growth as the industry navigates its way out of the pandemic.

More than half of Mindbody’s fitness customers estimate that attendance will be back to 100 per cent of pre-pandemic levels by December 2022.

Booker went through a series of iterations before its sale to Mindbody.

Launched in 2007 as SpaBooker by SpaFinder by co-founders Pete Ellis and patent-holder, Daniel Lizio-Katzen, the company span out of SpaFinder in 2010 as GramercyOne, changing its name to Booker Software Inc in 2012. McCarter took up the post of CEO in 2010.