Armed with a passion for changing the status quo, Grace McNamara, CEO of EXI, focuses on bringing together a team that can work as one and challenge each other while pushing up standards across the industry. She is responsible for bringing together 3 aspects under 1 solution: exercise science, behavior science, and technology involves patience and a team of experts to collaborate every day. Being the passion and driving force behind the company’s programs and services to tackle long-term health conditions, Grace has achieved great heights owing to her tenacity to work hard and uniquely transform lives.

Outside of EXI, Grace is a co-founder of a not-for-profit organization focused on empowering females to reach their potential in the fitness industry, RISE – Females in Fitness Collective. At the same time, Grace is chair of a female sports organization. Both roles involve facilitating and inspiring females to achieve their highest potential and not settle under an imaginary ‘glass ceiling’. “I believe sports and business are intrinsically linked. The lessons learned and the discipline to push for excellence transfer across both sport and business,” says Grace. “As others have empowered me in the past, I feel I have a duty to facilitate empowering other people. Luckily, I have the privilege to do both in my professional and personal capacity.”

Having spent 12 years at Apple, Grace has had unique opportunities to work and learn alongside multiple Leaders. They not only impact the world in their professional capacity but go above and beyond personally. It’s impossible not to be inspired and impacted by such leaders as Cathy Kearney, Deirdre O’Brien, Lisa Jackson, Denise Young Smith, and Dr. Sumbal Desai! “For me changing the world from environment to healthcare have been life-long passions where nothing has stood in their way,” says Grace. From the European HQ in Ireland, Grace joined Apple to head up all areas of employee health in Europe prior to moving to London to lead on Apple's Health and Fitness Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships in EMEIA. The roles involved extensive travel in Europe and even China, involved managing health business partnerships, including its collaboration with EXI which inspired a change of focus when the pandemic changed the landscape of the healthcare industry.

The integration of lifetyle medicine into every clinical pathway is well documented and is now being implemented more and more across the industry. Healthcare is changing and Grace is looking ahead to bring multiple aspects together.

Sitting at the intersection of healthcare and fitness, EXI is a digital therapeutic specializing in personalized exercise prescription for people at risk or diagnosed with one / multiple long term health conditions. Unlike other digital fitness solutions, EXI is classified as a medical device, prescribing intensity based exercise and rewarding people for achieving their goals. From diabetes to parkinsons, EXI provides a trusted, evidence-based, automated prescription platform like never before. Therefore the ultimate partner for professionals who want to engage and empower people to be physically active safely.

A steadfast leader, Grace has been taking EXI to new heights - aiming to simultaeneously learn to be a global CEO while driving forward the fast-growing business. "We have a diverse team of experts. As a leader, have to trust that each expert in the team is striving for excellence while driving the vision of the future forward" adds Grace. "That doesn't stop me demaning more and more of the team as we create the future. People will learn more from challenging projects and not from staying within their area of comfort/expertise"

In an interview with Joe Vennare of Fitt Insider, Grace described the future as "Think of EXI as being to digital therapeutics what iPod was to digital music". Soon you'll see exercise prescripiton in the hands and on the wrists of every healthcare professional and healthcare user. But we're not here thinking EXI on it's own will solve the global problem. Healthcare works best when integrated and professionals working in collaboration. "I've spent my entire career bringing together people, science and technology. As healthcare professionals, for years, we know what should happen at the point of care and EXI is designed to remove the barriers to exercise prescription for all people."

Marching Forward

Grace and her team’s vision is to tackle inequality, achieving a world where anyone can afford personalized, real-time healthcare. Leveraging data is making that possible. The world today is like no time in the past. “Technology is in your pocket, on your wrist, arm, chest, etc., and using the data to personalize healthcare is here to stay,” adds Grace. “The data that each of us carries every day has value beyond what most of us can imagine. EXI wants to put that data to good use and improve healthcare delivery, along with an individual’s self-care practices.”

For years, research has shown the benefits of physical activity, but people never had the tools to release its full potential. Most healthcare professionals have been able to give recommendations but not personalized prescriptions. Provide advice, but not monitor realtime adherence. There has never been a seamless way to use exercise as a targeted treatment for all. EXI makes prescribing exercise accessible, combining decades of scientific knowledge with pioneering technology to create the future of AI-powered healthcare. Their intelligent platform allows healthcare professionals to prescribe tailored programs in a way that’s easy, effective, and scalable.

“By uniting science with sophisticated motivational systems, we can achieve lasting behavioral changes for all, including the people who need it the most,” asserts Grace. “By combining, science, technology, and incentives, we are reversing the trends for long-term conditions, and we won’t stop until every person has the opportunity to control and reverse their diagnosis. It’s about each person being empowered and having the tools and knowledge they need.” Grace had always wanted to work on solving big global problems. “The problems around long-term health conditions don’t get much bigger when we consider it’s >70% of the global healthcare budget. We are living in a time of an unsustainable situation, and I’m determined to be part of the solution.”