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Leading Health and Fitness Nonprofit Hires Chief Strategy Officer, Signals Intent to Be Part of Broader Efforts to Increase Physically Active Lifestyles

Posted: Sep 21, 2017 in ACE Press Releases

New role filled by strategic-planning expert and facilitative leader with experience driving key initiatives for the American Council on Exercise

San Diego, September 21— The American Council on Exercise (ACE) has added a chief strategy officer to its executive team in an effort to expand the organization’s work beyond the traditional fitness sector, support the spread of grassroots community physical-activity programs and stewarding cross-sector collaboration to integrate physical-activity intervention into healthcare. Hired to fill the new role is Shane Kinkennon, a strategic planning expert and facilitative leader who has driven key initiatives and special projects for ACE since 2012.

"As part of our mission to get people moving, ACE seeks to reach far beyond the fitness industry to facilitate broader efforts that will speed the adoption of physically active lifestyles for everyone," said Scott Goudeseune, president and chief executive officer for ACE. "In his new role, Shane will steward improvements to ACE’s core operations and key processes, as well as cultivate innovative programs and initiatives that play to our organization’s strengths. It’s an investment in more vigorous pursuit of our lofty mission."

Kinkennon will help ACE craft initiatives, align internal resources and unlock the organization’s full potential to equip far more people with the skills, training and credentials necessary to be true influencers for physically active living in communities across the country. Kinkennon will also support ACE’s work in state capitals and in Washington D.C., to advance public policies to bring science-based physical-activity options to people directly where they live, work, play and pray.

From 2015-2017, Kinkennon served as project director for the ACE-funded Prescription for Activity (PfA) Task Force — a national group of business, academic, philanthropic and government experts spanning preventive-care, disease prevention, care delivery, public health and fitness. The PfA Task Force convened to map out how to mobilize healthcare, working in concert with the communities it serves, to help far more Americans achieve physical-activity levels recommended by the U.S. government. ACE convened the PfA Task Force because studies show that advice from health professionals can significantly influence the adoption of healthy lifestyle behaviors, including regular physical activity.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has called for the integration of physical-activity interventions into healthcare for large categories of patients who are at risk of costly lifestyle disease and other chronic conditions.

Before joining ACE, Kinkennon was co-founder and partner at the strategic-planning firm Wolfe Kinkennon, where he worked with groups ranging from a task force of state Medicaid directors, benefit decision-makers at the nation's leading health plans, education-reform advocates in Colorado and nationally, and leading national outdoor-recreation groups. Prior to that, he was the founder and principal of Kinkennon Communications Inc, where for 11 years he helped philanthropies, leading national nonprofits, major trade associations, and issue-based coalitions to achieve mission and business aims through strategic communications.

Kinkennon began his career in Washington D.C., where he designed, led and supported comprehensive public-affairs campaigns on health, financial services, retail, technology, education reform, food safety, and other public-policy issues. Before moving to San Diego to join ACE, he was living and working in Colorado.

About ACE

With a mission to get people moving, the nonprofit organization American Council on Exercise (ACE) educates, certifies and represents more than 70,000 currently certified fitness professionals, health coaches and other allied health professionals. ACE advocates for a new intersection of fitness and healthcare, bringing the highly qualified professionals ACE represents into the healthcare continuum so they can contribute to the national solution to physical inactivity and obesity. ACE is the leading certifier in its space and all four of its primary certification programs are accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), the gold standard in the United States for accreditation of certifications that assess professional competence. ACE also plays an important public-service role, conducting and providing science-based research and resources on safe and effective physical activity and sustainable behavior change. For more information, call 800-825-3636 or visit ACEfitness.org. AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EXERCISE, ACE and ACE logos are Registered Trademarks of the American Council on Exercise.