Bahram Akradi

Founder, Chairman & CEO
LIFE TIME

Bahram Akradi founded Life Time®, a privately held operator of large, resort-like healthy living, healthy aging, healthy entertainment destinations, programs and services in 1992. With the mission to provide an entertaining, educational, friendly and inviting, functional and innovative experience that meets the health and fitness needs of the entire family, Akradi and Life Time have since been credited with transforming the health and fitness industry.

As the Healthy Way of Life Company, Life Time helps organizations, communities and individuals to achieve total health objectives, athletic aspirations and fitness goals by engaging in their areas of interest – or discovering new passions – both inside and outside of Life Time’s distinctive destinations, most of which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Company’s holistic Healthy Way of Life approach enables customers to achieve this by providing the best places, people and programs of uncompromising quality and value.

Additionally, through Life Time’s development of best-in-class nutrition products, proprietary metabolic assessments and testing, and heart rate training protocols, personal training and nutrition consultation, the award-winning healthy lifestyle magazine, Experience Life, nationally renowned athletic events, full-service spas and cafes, and corporate wellness programs, Akradi has led the creation not of a typical “health club” or “gym” chain, but rather, a comprehensive, Healthy Way of Life Company and brand that continues to have a significant impact on the health and wellness of consumers.

Prior to launching Life Time, Akradi led U.S. Swim & Fitness Corporation (formerly Nautilus Fitness Center, Inc.) from 1984-1989 as co-founder, executive vice president, and part owner. U.S. Swim & Fitness was the second-largest health club company in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market when Akradi and his partners sold it to Bally Total Fitness in 1986. After continuing to operate the business as a division of Bally for more than two years, he left the company to develop business plans and secure investors for Life Time, which was launched three years later.

Akradi began his career at Nautilus Fitness Center while attending the University of Colorado and completing the requirements for a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Life Time is headquartered in Chanhassen, Minnesota.