Austin Malleolo Named New Director of U.S. Gym Operations

About as many CrossFit athletes have heard of Austin Malleolo as have climbed a rope or performed a deadlift. Malleolo has journeyed down nearly every career path CrossFit has to offer, helping many to move better along the way; he has been a coach, a CrossFit Games athlete, an affiliate owner, a CrossFit Seminar Staff member, and now, he is taking on a new role as CrossFit’s director of U.S. gym operations.

In his new role, Malleolo will have the opportunity to support the health of the affiliates under his purview by facilitating communication and providing key business insights and resources. This role, along with other new positions like those held by the affiliate representatives and field leaders, is part of a larger plan to develop a stronger infrastructure to support CrossFit affiliates.

“The 10,000-foot view is … to take care of the affiliates in the U.S.,” Malleolo said of his specific role. “The goal is to truly have someone who is overseeing the affiliate health, from resources being delivered to listening to them. What do they need? What do they want? What can the CrossFit home office do to support them and help them and elevate them?”

Malleolo will work with Gary Gaines, CrossFit’s GM of affiliates and international business lines, and the Affiliate Support team as he contributes to CrossFit’s focus on championing and growing affiliates globally.

“We’re incredibly excited to have Austin join the team as director of our U.S. gym operations,” Gaines said. “With over 12 years of involvement in CrossFit, Austin has built significant relationships within the community that will help guide him in serving our affiliates and leading a field organization laser-focused on ‘affiliates first.’”

“His unique experience as a successful affiliate owner, tenured Seminar Staff member, and former Games athlete allows him to make an immediate impact in our organization,” Gaines said.

In fact, Malleolo’s unique background shapes every aspect of the leadership philosophy he brings to the new role.

Drawing on his experience as an affiliate owner, he explained, “We as affiliate owners love to kind of do our thing … that’s the beauty of it. But also, there are times where it’s nice to know what’s going on. Nice to know the bigger picture.” Therefore, his perspective on how to best serve affiliates involves “really just thinking about that balance,” he said.

The key is to “give tools, not rules” Malleolo said, and the goal “ is to grow our affiliate community stronger within the existing affiliates and then to set our new gyms up for success.”

The CrossFit Workout of the Day can be used as a model for the kinds of tools the CrossFit home office might offer to affiliates, Malleolo explained.

“We provide a workout, but by no means are you obligated to utilize that workout at your gym, even though it’s from CrossFit.com. But you can have the Workout of the Day, which is really cool. … I think that we can utilize that same concept with a lot of other tools for our affiliates, beyond the workout.”

Malleolo also noted the importance of sharing the wisdom of CrossFit’s 10-year affiliate owners with the newer folks taking on gym ownership for the first time.

“You hear a lot of things that are consistent” when talking to newer affiliate owners, Malleolo explained. He said he often hears comments like, “I would have loved to have some help reading the lease,” or getting help with human resources issues, or reading up on zoning laws.

“When you open any business, specifically a gym, there’s so many things that are usually outside your scope of expertise,” Malleolo said. “Probably nice to have some support on that.”

The passion Malleolo brings to the new position comes from the same place as his love of coaching: “We want more people to do CrossFit,” he said. “We want more people to come into our gyms and really help them and support them in that journey. That’s something that I get really fired up about.”

“That’s why I started coaching and training and eventually opened up a gym … that opportunity to help people. And we know that it really starts at the affiliate,” he explained.

Helping people and caring about them is the thread that ties together all of Malleolo’s roles in the CrossFit world.

Caring about people “is really the most important aspect of coaching,” he said. “Care about your people. They will keep coming back. Yes, I want them to have their heels down, their knees out, their chest up, their hips going back and down, all that good stuff. But that’s secondary to feeling cared about.”

Likewise in the new role, Malleolo said, “I just want to know that every one of our affiliates is cared about.”

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All photos courtesy of Austin Malleolo.