Spa director Liz Holmes is to leave Darlington, UK's, Rockliffe Hall after six years at the helm to take up the role of national health and beauty manager with health club chain Virgin Active.

Holmes is to replace Emma Williams, who after nine years at Virgin is heading to The Joshua Tree day spa in Nottingham. Williams met Holmes on an education panel at a beauty event and – having announced her intention to step down late last year – decided that the Rockliffe Hall spa director would be her ideal successor.

For Holmes, the new role offers a fresh set of challenges and enables her to hand over to the “amazing team” at Rockliffe.

“While the scope and scale of the new role will change with 38 sites, many of the opportunities and challenges will be exactly the same,” Holmes told Leisure Opportunities.

“Key for me will be to get to the hearts and minds of the already successful team and identify how we can make a positive impact on the business results together.”

Having joined Rockliffe in 2009, Holmes grew the team to over 60 and scooped a slew of spa industry awards in the process. While she’s eager to harness her extensive experience in the new role, she says the first couple of months will see her take stock and assess opportunities.

“I will initially be consolidating the great work which Emma has done at Virgin to ensure consistent customer service and sales success,” added Holmes.

“(We’ll look).... to re-evaluate the plan for health and beauty at Virgin once opportunities have been identified.

• To read an article by Liz Holmes on what health clubs can learn from spas – first featured in the August 2013 edition of Health Club Management – click here.