Episodes

Virginia Carnesale is the founder of Shop Stage. Her story of surviving breast cancer is incredibly inspirational for others going through what she did, and was the push needed for starting Shop Stage. Her inspiration was based on her experiences as a patient, and her life long background in retail. While the company is only about five months old as of this podcast (Sept 2022), she and her team are doing incredible work helping other women take the guess work out of their cancer treatments, hav...

As a very active kid, Bryan Clay (Founder of the fast-growing franchise Eat The Frog Fitness and 2008 Olympic decathlon gold medalist), found himself with an ultimateum by his Mom: Track and field or swimming . . . and he chose track and field because, "There was no way I was going to wear a Speedo!" he jokes. Clearly, it turned out to be the right choice. "The track became my sanctuary," he states. Clay went on to gain a Fulbright scholarship, compete in the 2004 Olympics, won the gold in 2008...

Daniel Tobon is a self-described "hard 48." He joined the military at age 17 immediately after high school and served for 7.5 years. Due to a serious back injury, he later went on to get the, "most boring job I could" and became a lawyer. (Ha!) Tobon currently heads up iVIK Holdings. iVIK is a 100% USDA and EU certified organic cannabis production facility. They're also white-label, vertically integrated, and run a highly successful direct-to-consumer brand, Relevium. After selling his prior c...

Alessandro Biggi & Francesco Brachetti are best friends since college and grew up in Italy. They started Avocaderia- the buzzy new restaurant (now with 4 locations.) They have far from the "typical" background of hospitality entrepreneurs. Both studied and worked in the finance world but eventually, Alesandro came to the idea of,"Healthy comfort food that's good for you but enriched with healthy fats which could be cheese, almonds and so on. I realized that it was really hard to find healthy fo...

"Remedy Place is the world's first social wellness club," states Dr. Jonathan Leary, Founder. There is an incredible amount of buzz around this company, and for good reason! Leary has been working on this concept for a solid 10 years, and their new location in New York City's Flatiron district just recently opened. (Their first is in West Hollywood, CA.) "It's a whole entire club that's centered around holistic self-care, but it's made to enhance your health and your social life at the same tim...

Jeff Riney is currently the COO of the beautiful new St. James Club and has been in the industry since 1995. He got into the HALO sector, "By chance. . .and to avoid your classic 9-5 job. I started with selling memberships." Years later, the flagship St. James Club is a monster, 450,000 square feet facility with literally everything under one roof. It's a hybrid member/non-member model with all branded concepts developed in-house. "From a branding standpoint, Crunch and Equinox were really the ...

After playing Gaelic games professionally for nearly 15 years, JP and Dermot started Gaelic Performance, a firm which sold equipment into the highly niched Gaelic sports market. Sandbags and other products didn't really hold up and they ended up developing a much more sturdy and versatile product called the RAM and started RAMfit (Recycle And Move.) There's a heavily green ethos to the company and the product is made from recycled tires (which are heavily regulated in Europe) and steel from com...

In this episode, we're pleased to present an informative and enlightening interview with Ben Ludwig, a growth pastor, and a fitness coach with a rather unique background. "If you ask most people that are in ministry, that was never their original plan. For me, fitness was always my 100% go to. I started as a person trainer back in the day and worked my way up just through my passion for helping people. That's what I thought my career was going to be forever," states Ludwig. Ben and Pete discuss...

Who doesn't love good, healthy food? Better still, who doesn't love the option to have it delivered while also knowing that the restaurant (not Big Tech!) is getting their fare share of the profits. Today's episode of HALO Talks is made livelier and healthier by Josh Morgan, the founder of Sesame Order, a new marketplace created by a restaurant veteran squarely with other restaurant professionals in mind. Currently in approximately 250 restaurants in the NYC area, Sesame is still in beta and tes...

A former college athlete who moved into a fitness career (and became a pro MMA fighter!) industry veteran Emre Ozgur is now the Founder and CEO of a buzzy new brand with an extremely unique concept, Safe Sweat. "When we started really working on this, initially it was a concept for the pandemic, but the reason we decided to push forward is because there is a very large demographic of underserved people that have been saying for years, 'I don't want to work out in the social environment. I don't...

Recorded in NYC at the Boutique Fitness Solutions Summit in April 2022, Katy Richardson, Founder of Neighborhood Barre, a (barre studio franchisor) talks with Pete Moore about her (briskly growing) portfolio of 23 studios, which still remain self-funded. Katy was also the recipient of the highly regarded Pinnacle Business Award in the Young Entrepreneur category in Knoxville, TN. As a former cheerleader who suffered a severe accident, Katy got into yoga and other lower-impact modalities to aid ...

Monique Nadeau is the Co-Founder of EatLove a company whose, "best-in-class technology delivers personalized, on-demand meal guidance that adapts to all lifestyles and food preferences and helps guide the 200 decisions we make around food each day." As a former investment banker, Harvard University graduate with an MPA in Economic Policy, Nadeau is well aware of the critical importance of nutrition and the obesity crisis currently facing America. "I've always been attracted to people who want t...

InTouch Technology is a business very familiar to the Milkie family. As the current CEO, Mary spent 15 years on the vendor / CMS side, and has about 30 years total in the sector. She owned health clubs prior and worked in nearly every position. InTouch recently secured additional investment capital and is now branching out into the consulting and call center side. Mary provides some very valuable intel into the changing landscape of the CRM world. Regarding pricing she states, "I've been in th...

"I'm a tech guy / ex-athlete who became a big believer in this idea that food can get you sick, and food can also become the best medicine that you have," states Ari Tulla, CEO and Co-Founder of Elo. On their site they mention their vision is to "transform food from the cause of disease to medicine." Ari is a serial entrepreneur and was an early investor in the (now very popular!) Oura ring. When it comes to nutrition, where there's so much information changing (it seems!) weekly. Tulla says, ...

Robbie Bent is the CEO and Co-Founder of Othership. As one of the first employees with Ethereum, Robbie is extremely well versed in community building and galvanizing people around a particular cause. When it came to what is now Othership (with a brick and mortar location in Canada and a highly successful app,) he built this community initially in his backyard which grew to 400 people (and then a few thousand) with ~$20,000 a month in revenue. His initial entre to breathwork was, "As a way to c...

In one of our most important podcasts released to date, we're proud to talk with Dr. Laurie Whitsel, Vice President of Policy Research and Translation of the American Heart Association & Senior Advisor to the Physical Activity Alliance, a non-profit that, "Brings together stakeholders in the physical activity communities for us to speak with one voice on significant policy and systems changes," states Whitsel. Joining her is Integrity Square's own Chief Political Architect and policy veteran, To...

Integrity Square and TSG go back a long way. . . and we're excited to finally welcome Pierre LeComte, a highly seasoned private equity executive to HALO Talks. TSG began in consumer packaged goods but, "Just realized over time, what we were was brand investors. We really liked to back brands that were on trend and were riding consumer demand waves," states Comte. He continues, "We realized that could happen in a lot of different categories, not just historically food and beverage . . . but tha...

Mohammed Iqbal is the Founder & CEO of SweatWorks . . . the company quietly behind the tech of a lot of larger companies you're no doubt familiar with--CrossFit, Spartan Race, and many more. They are, "The leading digital agency in fitness design and technology to create meaningful wellness journeys for everyone." Iqbal spent 7 years at Sharp and, while there, worked on the iPhone with Apple's team which strongly impacted him in many ways. Originally from Dubai, he moved to NJ in 1991. "I dove ...

Carolyn and her husband Paul owned three private training facilities in Orange County, CA which catered mostly to higher level athletes. Nutrition was (obviously!) a significant part of that, and in 2013 they founded Balanced Habits™ as a way to bring scalable, personalized nutrition programming to the fitness industry. "It became something we were known for. It carried us through the financial crisis and really is what put us on the map . . . Fitness and nutrition go hand in hand, and for what...

Becky initially began her career in ocean conservation focusing on coral reefs. "I wanted to save the world and see the world. . . and when I found Joyride, I found this authentic community and wanted to be a part of it!" After moving full time into the HALO sector, she quickly realized there were no cycling studios in the San Antonio / south Texas region. She saw a need, jumped in, and become the first cycling studio to open in the area. Now, as the Founder of her newly launched, Amp Studio a...

"Culture can never be something where you just check the box. Once you've built that culture, you're not done! It takes every single day," states Joel Goldberg, speaker, broadcaster and author of Small Ball, Big Results. The parallels between sports and business are undeniable, and Goldberg shares some 'in the trenches' stories with Pete on everything from recruiting, finding the right roles for employees (athletes) and more! He also provides some real life examples (involving athletes you pro...

Wellness 4 Every 1 aims to increase awareness of the inequalities in the wellness industry and provide opportunities for diverse communities to have access to quality arts and wellness programming, as well as a space for social and emotional well-being. Their programs are currently in 100 public schools nationwide, with 150 classes weekly (new programs are added all the time) and impacting over 10,000 students! How do they know it's working? Among other things, "Every year the schools expand th...

Kory Angelin has been in the HALO sector for over 10 years. He began as a trainer and worked his way up with organizations like 24 Hour Fitness, Lifetime, Equinox, F45, and is currently the COO of Volofit. "I think I've been in every position along the way," he jokes. On the culture of an organization, he says, "A business is made or broken starting with the owner or ownership group. You're setting the tone at the top . . . the relationship between you and the customer, even before they become ...

Katie Webb was in digital partnerships for 11 years while also working as a fitness trainer and group exercise instructor. She ending up spending a lot of time at GNC and slowly started to learn the supplement industry. "I couldn't really find any formulas that were leveraging food ingredients over ingredients I've never heard of (never mind the 300 grams of caffine!) and a lot of my female clients felt the same." That frustration eventually led to her starting Aila, the Scottish/Gaelic word m...