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Planet Fitness hires new CEO focused on DEI after its stock market crash

Colleen Keating will take over on June 10 in an attempt to stem the controversy that erupted over the network's transgender locker room policy.

Fachada de un gimnasio Planet Fitness situado en Manchester.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Published by
Rosana Rábago Sainz

Planet Fitness hired a new CEO focused on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) after its stock market crash. Collen Keating will assume the position on June 10 in an attempt to stop the controversy that broke out over the gym chain's transgender locker room policy.

Keating worked for the past four years as a director of FirstKey Homes. There, recalls The New York Post, she signed the “CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion commitment,” a document that promised to “continually strive to diversify our workforce, hiring through a DEI lens to find talent in multiple locations and origins."

Keating, committed to DEI policy

A responsibility that she herself expressed through a LinkedIn publication in which she assured, two years ago, that she had an "unwavering commitment to advancing diversity, equality and inclusion in the workplace":

The financial losses of Planet Fitness

The decision was announced last week and Planet Fitness argued in a press release that Colleen is an "exceptional leader with the desired skills, experience and culture-first mindset needed":

Colleen's deep operational knowledge, strategic mindset and understanding of large-scale franchise operations and consumer-facing brands made her stand out among the candidates considered. She also has a proven track record of building results-oriented teams and instilling cultures that put a premium on operational excellence and rigor, which we believe will be additive to Planet Fitness. We are confident that Colleen is an exceptional leader with the desired skills, experience and culture-first mindset necessary to accelerate Planet Fitness's next phase of growth.

The news was accompanied by a drop in the chain's stock value of $400 million in March. It happened when problems began in the company just after a user of the chain reported that she had found a man, who self-identified as a woman, changing in a female locker room in one of the gyms that the chain has in Alaska.

Weeks later, another woman reported a similar situation in another establishment located in North Carolina. But this time in front of a minor whom the transgender man invited to shower with him.

For this reason, the hiring of Colleen Keating was not received as well as the network had hoped. As the NY Post found out, the gym chain's shares fell 1.7% on Thursday, just a day after the signing of Keating as the new CEO was announced.

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