Active Nation has promoted Stuart Martin to become the leisure operator and charity’s new managing director.

Tasked with driving Active Nation towards growth and a more exciting proposition, Martin takes up the role vacated by John Oxley when he left to join rival operator Places for People Leisure earlier this year.

Martin has spent the last four years working as part of the charity’s senior team as group commercial manager. Prior to joining Active Nation, Martin held national group roles with Everyone Active and Aura, where he worked on the development and delivery of their fitness propositions.

“As a charity we are on a mission to persuade the nation to be active and I strongly believe that this has never been more important than right now,” said Martin.

“As an organisation we’ve got a strong strategic plan for growth across the sector so that we can work with more local authority partners and influence the activity rates of more communities.”