Humphrey Cobbold

Humphrey Michael Cobbold (born Nairobi, Kenya 1964) is the current chief executive officer of PureGym, the UK’s largest gym operator. He joined the business in 2015 when there were 84 gyms, growing the business to over 200 facilities in 2018. He oversaw the sale of the business for the founder (Peter Roberts) and investors from CCMP to Leonard Green & Partners in November 2017 for over £600m.

Education
Cobbold was educated at Bromsgrove School, an independent boarding and day school in the Worcestershire town of Bromsgrove, followed by the University of Cambridge and INSEAD, from which he obtained an MBA.

Career
Cobbold is the former chief executive officer of Wiggle Ltd - a UK-based online retailer of cycling and triathlon-related products. He is a former chairman of Fish4, a British recruitment website, as well as the Director of Strategic Development and executive committee member of Trinity Mirror.

Before joining Fish4 and Trinity Mirror, he was a partner and the co-head of the UK media practice for the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Before he went into politics, Cobbold was taught in secondary school by prominent UK politician Edwina Currie.

Leaving Wiggle
In September 2009, Humphrey Cobbold began his position as the CEO of Wiggle Ltd., a Portsmouth-based online retailer. He headed the bicycle online retailer during some trying times, including during the period when Bridgepoint was in the process of acquiring Wiggle Ltd. In late 2013, Cobbold departed from Wiggle as its CEO and in September of that year, his successor would be Stefan Barden. While Cobbold captained Wiggle Ltd. the company saw its annual sales revenues increase from 33 million pounds to a little over 140 million pounds; Cobbold described managing the company while it was experiencing speedy and high growth as "trying to ride a tiger".

Upon leaving Wiggle Ltd. as its CEO, Cobbold stated:

“I have had the privilege to work with a truly fabulous group of colleagues and business partners over the last four years. The time is now right for someone else to lead the peloton and take Wiggle forward to future success.”

He has since been linked to a bid to buy the internet retailer sofa.com.

PureGym
Since 2013 Cobbold has been serving as the CEO of PureGym, a network of 264 gyms with more than 1.1 million members. In 2019 PureGym acquired Fitness World.