Phillip Mills

It was always a fair bet that Phillip Mills would become an athlete, and so he was. He competed in hurdles events for New Zealand at the 1974 and 1978 Commonwealth Games.

His father was Les Mills, one of the great shot putters and discus throwers in New Zealand history. His mother was Colleen Mills, who represented New Zealand in the 400m at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. And his sister was Donna, who competed in the high jump in Christchurch.

In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that Les Mills was controversially omitted from the team – the first Games he had missed since his first, in Cardiff in 1958 – four members of the Mills family would have competed in Christchurch. As it was, three competed and Les did the television commentary.

Phillip, born in Auckland in 1955, won one national 110m hurdles title, in 1980, and had the unusual distinction of representing New Zealand in three quite different running events in the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games. He ran in the 110m hurdles, a real sprint, the 400m hurdles, more of an endurance race, and the 4 x 100m relay, a straight sprint without hurdles.

He said he grew up on Grey Lynn Park, which was at that time a leading New Zealand track and field athletics venue.

“I watched many great athletes, including Peter Snell racing Kip Keino there. From age 7 to 10 we lived in the US while my dad was at university. I remember the first few weeks there - there was colour TV with multi-channels. For a kid, the Americans had all the materialistic cool stuff. And junk food.

“I went to De Anza Primary in what is now Silicon Valley but was mostly orchards then, and 32nd St School in downtown LA. As one of few white kids I got chased home from school a lot. My mother said that was where I learned to run.

“From when I was 10 to 17, we lived in Pt Chevalier and I went to Mt Albert Grammar.”

At Christchurch in 1974, Mills, only 18, was 6th in his 110m hurdles heat in 14.5s and did not advance in the event.

He was a more experienced athlete by the time he got to Edmonton in 1978. Running in the 400m hurdles he was 5th in his heat in 53.78s, improved markedly to record 50.92s in his semi-final, which was enough to earn him a berth in the final. He did not have his best race in the final, running 52.01s and was 8th.

In the 110m hurdles he was second in his heat in 14.32s – 6th fastest going into the final. There he went quicker again 14.09s and 6th overall.

In the 4 x 100m relay, two hurdlers, Mills and Ross Pownall, joined Bevan Smith and Graeme French, to carry New Zealand to 5th in their heat, not enough to earn a spot in the final.

Mills attended the University of California in Los Angeles on an athletics scholarship and graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1978.

On returning to New Zealand in 1979, he took an increasing role in the Les Mills fitness club business founded by his parents in 1968. The Les Mills business was floated on the stock market in 1984 and was taken over by an investment company in 1987. After the sharemarket crash that year, the investors went bust and the Mills family bought the business back from the receivers. “We borrowed millions to do it and I worked 100-hour weeks for several years. When you're in that, it's survival and you're fighting every day in the trenches.”

In the early 1980s, Mills developed an exercise-to-music choreographed set of exercises and commercialized them based on licensing instructors to lead classes.

He built the business spectacularly so that its programmes were distributed to more than 100 countries. By 2023, the workouts were being run in 21,000 gyms and clubs around the world.

Phillip Mills has also developed a group fitness management system for maximizing the commercial benefits of the Les Mills programmes.

Mills has shared his views on fitness industry trends and the secrets of the most successful fitness facilities regularly across the fitness industry.

Mills is an advocate for “green” business. His belief in the importance of sustainability has been widely publicised in New Zealand, and he has written several articles on the financial benefits of a clean, green economy, along with the need for New Zealand to take action on climate change.

He founded Pure Advantage, a group of New Zealand business leaders lobbying for green economic policy. The Pure Advantage Trust commissioned a group of world-leading economists to review New Zealand's green growth opportunities. In 2007 Mills and his wife, Jackie Mills, published Fighting Globesity – A Practical Guide To Personal Health and Global Sustainability.

Prompted by a perceived lack of action from the Government on climate change, in 2014, Mills gave $64,999 to the Labour Party and $60,000 to the Green Party. In 2023, he continued his support of the Labour Party, offering to match up to $50,000 in donations.

Mills' daughter Diana has also spoken to Forbes magazine about how her parents were ahead of the feminist curve in promoting “strong is the new skinny”.

Phillip Mills the businessman has won a string of awards and titles:

· In 2004, Mills was Ernst & Young's New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year.

· In 2005, Les Mills International was named New Zealand Services Exporter of the Year by NZ Trade and Enterprise.

· In 2009, Mills won Kea New Zealand's World Class New Zealand Award for New Thinking.

· In 2011, Mills was presented with an Australian Fitness Network Lifetime Achievement Award and was named on The National Business Review Rich List.

· In 2022, Mills, his wife Jackie and his fathers were jointly inducted into the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame.