Normal Northern Ireland - Hench Fitness and Rory Girvan

Rory Girvan, founder of HENCH Fitness (@InsideHENCH)

Rory Girvan (@InsideHench) is the athlete and entrepreneur behind HENCH (website here). A creative and innovative fitness gym started in 2012 and located only meters from Belfast city hall, at 37 College Street. Born in North Belfast Rory practices what he preaches. He studied Biomedical Sciences in Liverpool and Sport and Exercise Sciences in Edinburgh. He is a competitive weight-lifter, winning a Silver Medal at the WDFPF World Powerlifting Championships (see here) (more here and here). He is the owner of a growing business employing 10 fitness professionals.

HENCH, 37 College Street

I have been hugely impressed by Rory. He mixes warmth and openness with a fierce ambition, for the sport and business. The tech entrepreneur Felix Dennis said that an idea is worth nothing without execution. Rory has given expression to this. Rory saw the state of the fitness industry and had a vision. He has taken an old dilapidated factory space and executed that vision with a fine professional polish.

Walk into the vast premises at HENCH and you be met with a beautiful mix of vintage and modernity, and a striking sense of being part of the new, post-industrial, networked, international economy. That's the Northern Ireland I know. A team saturated and soaked in ambition. A people straining every sinew to succeed. Read my blog post on the transition from industrial to networked economy here.