Physical activity is essential for maintaining good health. and well–being. It is vital for our health and happiness in the modern world, where many people lead sedentary lifestyles and face various stressors that lead to lifestyle–related health problems. By being more active regularly, we can improve our physical and mental health, prevent diseases, and enjoy life more. It has many benefits for our physical, mental, and social health like reducing the risk of chronic diseases, relieving stress, anxiety, and depression, strengthening the muscles, bones, and joints, etc.
Always passionate about physical activity for health, Grace McNamara, from a very young age, benefited from the community of team sports and saw first–hand, the impact on physical and mental health. She was hooked on helping people to be healthier and happier. Her passion has led her to be the CEO of Exercise Intelligence (EXI), a MedTech company specializing in behavior change and personalized physical activity programs.
Making Exercise Personalized
EXI: Exercise Intelligence is a medical software that uses physical activity as a personalized and powerful treatment for various chronic conditions. It is based on the latest scientific evidence and technology, and it helps people achieve their health goals with tailored and engaging physical activity programs. As a medical device, EXI is the first of its kind and aims to improve the quality of life for millions of people.
Personalization forms the core of its services as it makes prescribing exercise and monitoring their effects feasible for both the patient and the medical practitioner. Personalization is critical for EXI as they truly want to change people’s lives. Therefore;
- The physical activity program (frequency, intensity, time, sets, reps) is personal for every person, based on several factors from conditions, to resting heart rate, current activity status, and more. Generic physical activity information is just not good enough anymore.
- The health outcomes people want to see are personal to them. The platform captures the data to show each person their progress in their personal journey. Activity minutes at the right intensity level, blood pressure, blood glucose, energy levels, mood, and pain scores are all personal, and reporting progress consistently is not only possible but necessary.
To address the concern about equity of access in healthcare, EXI offers a direct–to–consumer solution but also focuses on enabling employers, providers, insurers, payors, and even governments to make safe and personal programs available to every person.
EXI is the software to enable every person to automatically get a physical activity program that safely builds on the medical guidelines for multiple chronic conditions, health status and activity levels.
Technology for the Greater Good
The importance of physical activity for health is not up for debate. Every research paper ever written on health, longevity, and happiness validates that physical activity is crucial. It’s the implementation, access, and showing success that we need to improve, says Grace.
To help best practice be implemented for every person, Grace suggests that we need automated technology for safe personalization. To understand the relationship, one must think about the breadth of medical guidelines for chronic conditions, the breadth of precautions for exercises across warm–ups, strength, cardio, flexibility, and the ever–increasing research related to medications and then apply the behavior change methodologies that are necessary to engage each person. Each person deserves to have the complexities of all of those aspects, made simple for them every day and for every person to be supported every day. This is the value of the technology EXI is improving every day.
Committed to Population Health and Fitness
With over 20 years in fitness and health, Grace spent 12 years at Apple, heading up all areas of health and fitness for Apple employees in EMEIA, prior to leading Apple’s Health and Fitness Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships in EMEIA. She holds an Executive MBA, a master’s degree in Public Health and Epidemiology, a BSc in Health, Fitness and Physiology and currently studying a Chartered Directorship.
Grace is involved with numerous not–for–profit organizations as the co–founder of RISE to empower women in the UK fitness industry to reach their potential, an advisor to SportsTech Ireland, and has multiple voluntary roles in her community to support female athletes to excel in sport and business.
Grace started out in traditional fitness as a personal trainer but she wanted to reach more people to drive a bigger impact in health. She moved to population health initiatives delivering physical activity programs for older adult’s community groups, disadvantaged teenagers, and people with disabilities and assisting in setting up publicly funded structures with the national health system. The diversity of programs and population was the best way she could have imagined putting her degree in health, fitness, and physiology to use.
After a few years in the public sector, Grace changed lanes to focus on employee health for the most progressive global strategy in a culture of innovation at Apple. With supportive leadership, ring–fenced investment, and a strong global team, she implemented best practice initiatives for physical activity, nutrition, mental health, and medical services for corporate and retail employees in Apple locations across EMEIA.
“It was thrilling to see the value created so I completed my master’s in public health and epidemiology to align with global practice. When I changed teams to focus on supporting other businesses to leverage technology for healthcare outcomes, I continued my education with an executive MBA. This assisted my decision to move to EXI as a start–up with the opportunity to be a global leader. This continues to excite me every day,” says Grace.
You can’t see your improvement for what you’re not tracking. Life is 24/7 and when it comes to physical activity, anything is everything!
A Cooperative Leader
As the first Software as a Medical Device focused on physical activity and chronic conditions (obesity as the primary condition), Grace’s team is always planning ahead on how to be better and bigger than anything else available. Because what’s been tried before in the industry has not been effective enough and they have to do better than every health solution that came before.
Challenges Enroute
Talking about the challenges, Grace says that she asks herself every day why we don’t see greater investment in population health and preventive care. She often finds herself asking others what are the barriers. Unfortunately, it’s often the business case. Therefore, healthcare and fitness professionals have to become financial experts to get the value across to all stakeholders.
“It’s not enough to point to the clinical evidence for the solution to be safe and effective, I have to point to the return on investment for companies who keep their costs and savings data close to their chest. Leaders today have to wear multiple hats at any one time so I believe in the power of continuous learning both through formal education and the power of a diverse network of experts in every field I can think of,” she explains.
Staying Ahead in the Industry
Grace believes networking is what helps us stay ahead of the curve. She engages with experts regularly through networking events, formal partnerships, posts, shared articles, industry publications, and industry debates, and also reads a lot of books on many diverse topics. Healthcare has many facets and is made up of specialists across the spectrum. She needs to be a generalist who is able to extract the top priorities for the future from many specialist areas. “I want to create the changes in the industry and not just be aware of what is changing. Big difference!” she exclaims.
In the coming years, Grace would like her team to qualify and quantify the benefit created for millions of people therefore creating a new set point for what is best practice at the intersection of physical activity and healthcare.
We use wearable technology to seamlessly track and trend the health improvements and cost savings for each member.
Words of Wisdom
Grace concludes our interaction with the following message for young entrepreneurs:
“If it was easy, everyone would be doing it so embrace the discomfort and know that it’ll be worth it. Just remember that nothing worth achieving is achieved alone so build a strong network and team around you as you’ll need to move mountains!”
A Quote to Live By:
It’s funny but if you could see my house, you’d see a host of quotes dotted all over as many quotes help me in many different ways and at different times. From coffee cups saying ‘You got this‘ to framed pictures saying. ‘You’re stronger than you think you are’.
But the one that I say to myself most often is ‘Dream, Believe, Achieve. It acts as a reminder that I dream of leaving a big impact on the world, I have to believe I can and therefore get back to work so it can be achieved. I use the same for my fitness achievements be that with a sports team or running a marathon so I love the fact it works for my personal and professional life.
Rapid Fires:
- How would you sum up your 2023: A lot done and a lot more to do.
- A Contemporary Leader You Admire: I admire Melindal Gates and her ability to execute in business and for diverse humanitarian needs through the foundation of inspiring.
- A Book/Audiobook you are currently Reading/Listening:
I’ve just finished reading 2 great books which I highly recommend:
– The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek and The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.
- Your biggest role model:
I really admire Jacinda Ardern for her commitment, resilience, and compassion. Women are held to a higher standard and leaders like Jacinda push the standards up for all global leaders.
• Success to you is: Leaving a legacy that can’t be reversed and positively impacts millions of people.
