Whitbread's master of treadmills

After the excesses of Christmas and New Year, January is a time of denial and newspapers and magazines are full of articles telling us all how to become fitter and healthier.

This should make Stewart Miller a happy man. As head of Whitbread's David Lloyd Leisure, the country's biggest chain of health and fitness clubs, Miller must surely just sit back and watch the membership fees roll in?

But he is unusually downbeat. Maybe it is the January weather getting him down. Or maybe it is because only weeks ago Miller, 51, found out that he had been passed over for the top job at Whitbread in favour of fellow board member Alan Parker.

Whatever the reason, Miller soon rallies. After all, he is not the head of a fitness chain for nothing - positive attitude is everything. Before long, he is throwing himself around gleaming rows of treadmills and rowing machines to pose for photographs.

In his soft North-East accent, he extols the delights of Pilates and spinning medicine balls with the zeal of a convert. Miller, you see, used to run Whitbread's pubs before they were sold and he was switched to a healthier sector.

Despite being a self-confessed pub man, he took it all in his stride. Miller says: 'It was great to be a consumer of food and drink in the beer business and get paid for it, and now it's great to get paid for working it all off.'

Miller has been a sports nut since his grammar school days at South Shields in the North-East. At Sheffield University in the early Seventies, where he took economics and business studies, he played local league football before joining the squash boom. He now works out four times a week, including thrashing his colleagues at tennis.

Miller is nothing if not loyal, having worked at Whitbread for 23 years, including spells at its various businesses - brewing, Travel Inn, Brewers Fayre and Pizza Hut.

But now it is the David Lloyd chain, with its 55 clubs and 285,000 members, that is the focus of his enthusiasm. It is a significant part of Whitbread, contributing ten% of turnover and 15% of profits. Miller's main priority is the UK operation, though David Lloyd has recently expanded into Spain and the Low Countries.

As head of David Lloyd, Miller is on a par in Whitbread with restaurants boss Bill Shannon and Parker, who heads the hotels division, so it is only natural to assume there is rivalry between them.

Not so, it seems. 'First and foremost, people are competitive with themselves,' he says.

'You're constantly trying to achieve your targets. As for internal competition between me, Bill and Alan, we're all on the board of Whitbread and we're all trying to achieve results for the plc.'

But it is Parker, rather than Miller or Shannon, who will succeed David Thomas as chief executive. 'Was I disappointed? Yes,' admits Miller with disarming honesty. 'You're bound to be. I'm sure everyone hoped to get it and at least two men were always going to be disappointed.'

However, he is quick to add: 'But I didn't feel like going anywhere else. I've got a great business to run and it's a job that isn't finished by a long way. I'm not looking to go to any other part of Whitbread

Being the good sport that he is, Miller has warm words for Parker. 'I hope Alan fares really well,' he says.

'He's got a lot of talent and experience. We're all on the board together, we've all signed up to the strategy.

'But David Thomas will be a hard act to follow, he's done a very good job. The results have been solid in the past three years and well in excess of any competitor. And if we'd had better luck in the hotels business, results would have been stunning.'

As for David Lloyd, Miller is continuing to expand the mainly out-of-town family chain, investing in the latest exercise trends such as Pilates as well as its core tennis programmes.

Meanwhile, he is busy preparing for the Eastbourne half-marathon, having run the Great North Run twice and completed the London to Paris Triathlon for charity.

No one can say Miller doesn't lead by example.