Judi Sheppard Missett's Success Story

Founder and CEO of Jazzercise Inc.

Judi is best known as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Jazzercise Inc. – a company that represents a whole new concept through which she promotes fitness programs throughout the world. Judi has won a heap of awards from various different organizations for her contribution to society.

The success story of Judi Sheppard Missett and the company she founded is a story about her love to jazz dance, which has turned into a dance exercise phenomenon that has influenced thousands of people all over the world. For over 40 years she has been a strong advocate of fitness through aerobic dance. Her innovative class formats and conventions held for customers as well as for instructors are quite ground breaking. Headquartered at Carlsbad, California where Judi serves as CEO, she oversees over 7800 instructors and moreover employs around 250 support personnel.

She choreographs new routines for instructors of franchises once every 10 weeks. She also teaches Jazzercise classes personally apart from starring in the Jazzercise home DVDs produced by her company. An interesting fact is that she also produces a half-hour exercise program called “Jazz Cardio Strength Stretch” that is aired through public access cable stations. Judi travels a lot and is being invited as a guest speaker for various fitness events. She conducts media interviews as well and leads many community welfare programs.

Judi Sheppard Missett has been awarded the President’s Award from Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO). She holds the 18th place in the Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 for the year 2010. The San Diego Business Journal had placed her on the number two spot for “Top 50 Women Owned Businesses in San Diego List” for 2009. And these all are in fact a small part of her numerous awards down the years from various organizations and publications.

Let me say a few words about Judi’s education. She graduated from Northwestern University in 1966 with a Bachelor’s degree in theater and radio/television. She is a native of Iowa and through her college years worked as a professional dancer. Her Jazzercise actually started as an experiment. During her early years in Chicago, where she taught jazz dance classes, she had a special class “just for fun”, where students were turned away from the mirror. That inspired her for her future business success and Jazzercise was born. The year was 1972, the year that she moved her family to Southern California. Her first step on the road to success was to start training other instructors, which costed her around 5 years. When they were ready, she was able to spread Jazzercise throughout the world.

Judi gives a lot of importance to community welfare projects. With the help of her many instructors she has raised over $26 million for various charities. She also initiated the “Kids Get Fit” which is a free program aimed to help school districts teach fitness to their children as a way of life.

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