Fitizens Holdings
Fitizens Holdings
Health, Wellness, & Fitness Advisory Services

Partner

Debra Strougo

From working in business development for established brands and industries, to launching her own brands in the health and fitness industry, Debra has seen opportunities to grow businesses for her 20 year career. Debra is a seasoned entrepreneur with a passion for the fitness and wellness industry, disrupting markets, uncovering niche opportunities, developing sustainable, high-growth businesses, and establishing high-impact brand and marketing strategies.

Debra founded and served as the CEO of Row House, delivering a unique opportunity that cut through the cluttered fitness landscape. Under her guidance, Row House experienced 390% growth and a 1066 ranking on the INC.com 5000 list. Through a strategic partnership with Xponential Fitness, she scaled the Row House brand from one studio to 300 – all within six years - and continue to acts as an advisor to the company.

Currently through Fitizens Holdings, Debra provides guidance to early stage growth companies within the Health, Wellness, and Fitness sector. Her work includes determining the best ways to reach target customers, lift the value proposition, and create sustainable businesses through focused client acquisition and retention initiatives. Having grown her own business from inception, Debra understands profitability, investor relations, strategic partnerships, and the franchise market intrinsically. She has also gotten deeply involved in corporate wellness initiatives recently connecting corporations to fitness offerings.

Previously, and with a deep fitness background, Debra has powered several ground-breaking fitness and wellness initiatives and become a vocal advocate for the fitness industry (She has been appointed to IHRSA's NHFA Council as one of 11 to lead the industry through drastic change from COVID). Her career outside the fitness industry has focused on business development. She contributed for 5 groundbreaking years at NYC’s Official Tourism Arm - one of the most fulfilling career experiences she has had, and one that continues to contribute to all other projects she is involved in.

Debra is also a managing partner of Levitate Group.

Learn more and Connect with Debra on Linked In.

Partner

Eric Von Frohlich

Eric Von Frohlich

Eric’s business development skills and fitness programming prowess have been credited to launching and growing market-disrupting businesses. 

For over 25 years, consummate entrepreneur Eric Von Frohlich has led fitness program innovations that make the industry more inclusive, accessible, and attractive to previously untapped populations. 

A key driver behind some of the industry’s most successful fitness programs, Eric is well-known for pioneering the game-changing Row House brand, an alternative fitness regimen that leverages the benefits of rowing and group fitness - and has been carefully designed to reach a wide target population. Eric has been instrumental in powering 390%+ growth, cementing a partnership with Xponential Fitness that sparked growth of 300+ studios, and securing a 1066 ranking on the Inc.com 5000 list of rapid growth private companies.

Prior to the launch of Row House, Eric founded the popular EVF Performance Strength & Conditioning/CrossFit program, created and launched RoadFit, NYC’s first ever outdoor bootcamp, and contributed to the development of “Practice” for Equinox – the barrier-breaking program that brought men into the group fitness realm.

Eric has paved the way to programming that has shaped the way that thousands of coaches are trained and has molded all of his brand’s philosophies. Along with his entrepreneurial successes, Eric is well known as a high profile trainer, coaching people on how to live better lives for over 25 years.

 

Accomplishments

  • Co-founder of Row House and instrumental in securing a partnership with Xponential Fitness

  • Founder of EVF Performance and CrossFit Upper East Side

  • Creator and founder of NYC's first outdoor bootcamp, RoadFit

  • Featured in several media channels, including WebMD, ABC, Shape Magazine, NY1, CNN, Cosmopolitan, Redbook and others

  • NY Times Bestseller: Younger Next Year, Fitness Contributor 

  • National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), International Sports Science Association (ISSA), American Council on Exercise (ACE) and CrossFit trained and certified