Alex Watts
Study Type: School Leaver Vocational
Study Location: The Roundhouse
Subject Studied: Business,Leadership and Management
Former DCG business student taps into Myanmar fitness market
Lifestyle company managing director, personal trainer and former business student, Alex Watts, enjoyed many aspects of his time at the Roundhouse.
And, he said, one of the best things about Derby College was the flexible work schedule offered by his BTEC level 3 business course.
Alex also met his fiancée and business partner Joanna Kyiang on his course, and straight after College, they left the UK together to work in Myanmar.
For two years Alex was a director of primary athletics in an international school, where he discovered a passion for coaching. Eager to start a business of his own, he went to Bangkok to become a certified personal trainer.
Offering an international standard of personal training to high profile clients, demand for his services quickly boomed.
So, racing to capitalise on this untapped market, he and Joanna co-founded Lifestyle Centre and fitness business, FORM Yangon.
Alex said: “We pitched our idea to investors, raised the capital we needed for expansion and began building our Lifestyle Centre from the ground up.
We now offer personal training, group training and youth fitness within our purpose-built centre, and are on a mission to elevate active, healthy lifestyle living in Myanmar.”
As well as gaining further qualifications in personal training and coaching Alex is now a certified nutritionist.
He has also hosted a child fitness TV show, which he and Joanna scripted, planned, directed, edited and produced with a local TV company – in what was the first English-speaking programme for the channel.
Reflecting on his time at College, Alex said marketing, economics and business development were the stand-out areas for him.
He added: “One of my lecturers, who taught marketing, showed me how to find answers to problems. She would constantly encourage me to look deeper into situations and ask myself why, why, why? This is something I now use with my team.”
One of my lecturers, who taught marketing, showed me how to find answers to problems. She would constantly encourage me to look deeper into situations and ask myself why, why, why? This is something I now use with my team.