Children's activity and sport provider Fit For Sport has strengthened its management team with two new appointments to support ongoing expansion.

Anita De Villiers has joined the company as head of children’s experience, tasked with ensuring Fit For Sport’s programmes and activities, both in and out of schools, remain innovative, progressive and fun. De Villiers brings a broad range of experience from her previous role as national children’s manager at Virgin Active where she worked for more than 13 years.

Meanwhile, Jack Shakespeare has been promoted to head of training and development to drive Fit For Sport’s children’s activity programming. He also leads the Fit For Sport training academy, responsible for the quality of delivery of its vocational training and CPD programmes. Shakespeare has been with the company for seven years, working from the ground up – initially as an activity leader in its schools and Kids Camp services – and more recently as national training manager.

“Anita and Jack combine to extend our resources with their respective valuable skills, experience and ideas,” said Dean Horridge, CEO and founder of Fit For Sport, and the recently appointed chair of Compass.

“We are currently pushing on several fronts to make children’s activity a top priority in the UK and their fresh ideas and additional perspectives on our work will be crucial to our next phase of growth.”

Currently working with 250 schools, Fit For Sport says it is growing by around 35 per cent each year and plans to embrace new projects, including sector-specific apprenticeship programmes.