Plenty of CEOs swear by 5 a.m. alarms, 12‑hour days, and punishing gym sessions—but Bupa’s CEO Iñaki Ereño adds a twist: His personal trainer is his 23‑year‑old son.
Despite his age (61) and hectic schedule running Britain’s largest healthcare provider and serving over 60 million customers worldwide, he hits the gym nearly every day—keeping up with the pace of a Gen Zer. And he credits that consistent (albeit grueling) routine as the key to sustaining long-term success. Both physically and in his career.
“My routines are set up by my son, and he follows them too… We normally do weights together. He’s my personal trainer,” Ereño tells Fortune.
“I go to the gym six times a week. I do four days of weights and two days on the treadmill. And honestly, when you’re above a certain age, and you have back pain here and there, you need that.”
But the daily practice isn’t just about gaining strength. “100%…totally, totally,” he says when asked if it helps him run the business.
“He’s starting his career. I am kind of ending my career,” Ereño explains. That generational gap helps give him a different perspective from his board. And unlike employees, his son isn’t hesitant to speak his mind—as Ereño points out, he only wants the best for his dad.
“We talk about gym-related issues, but then we also talk about our life,” Ereño says, adding that he’ll pick his son’s brains to specifically grow his “leadership skills and relationship skills.”
“He’s in banking, so it’s a different business, but more on the personal side, (I get advice around) how I should interact with my colleagues?” he adds. “One of the points he reinforces, which I appreciate, is that not everybody’s the same.”
Bupa CEO’s daily routine also includes 10-hour days of back-to-back meetings and 50-minute walks home
The Spanish-born boss moved to London when he got promoted to Bupa’s Group CEO role in 2o21. And not only does he stay sharp by lifting weights. He also racks up a pretty impressive daily step count.
Ereño starts every day at 6:30 a.m. with a black coffee, a glance at six newspapers—three English, three Spanish—on the iPad, before hopping on the tube (or subway) to the office.
By 8 a.m., the meetings begin, and Ereño says they’re back-to-back through to 6 p.m., after which he takes a mental pause. “I spend some time with myself, a little bit of reflecting on the day, maybe answering a few emails,” Ereño says.
Unless London weather intervenes, he walks all the way home—a 50-minute route he initially started as a “detox” but now has become a daily habit for reflection and decompression.
Every evening follows the same rhythm: a gym session with his son, a trip to the local supermarket to buy dinner, eating, watching TV, sleeping, and repeat.
On paper, it might look mundane. Despite a multimillion-pound compensation package and a swanky Soho flat, even Ereño admits, “my life is very normal.” But he says, it’s a necessity when running a £16.9 billion-a-year ($23 billion) Fortune 500 company with over 100,00 employees.
“My decisions impact many people,” Ereño adds, and that “amalgamation of staying grounded, doing some exercise, and having a stable life as possible” is the framework that keeps him sane and able to lead with clarity under pressure.
CEOs of Starbucks, Chipotle and Airbnb agree: exercise sets your day up for success
Carving out time to exercise isn’t a luxury perk of the C-suite. For some of the world’s most powerful bosses, it keeps them at their A-game.
At 5 a.m., before most of their customers have even ordered their first latte or burrito bowl, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol and Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright are already side by side—spotting each other on the weight rack.
Despite running rival fast-casual empires, the two millionaire bosses start most mornings in the gym together, debating trends like AI, protein-packed menus, and getting fresh perspectives on each other’s business ideas, like Chipotle’s guacamole-making robots.
For Airbnb’s founder and CEO Brian Chesky, one workout a day isn’t enough. He starts each morning around 8:30 a.m. with light cardio—either on the StairMaster or walking his dog through his hilly neighbourhood—before starting work, he told Fortune. Then, around 7:30 p.m., he works out again with a personal trainer.
Despite being in his seventies, Disney’s outgoing chief Bob Iger gets up at 4 a.m. and works out for at least 45 minutes—and he, too, says it’s critical to his success.
“Staying in shape and having stamina is critical for me; that’s eating well and exercising,” Iger told the In Good Company podcast. “Just taking care of my body and my mind is really important, I could not do this job if I were not in some form of physical and mental health.”
