I Never Planned to Lead Curves Around the World… I Just Kept Saying Yes
Hi, I’m Kim McQueen, President and CEO of Curves North America, Australia and New Zealand.
If you ask me how I got here, I honestly don’t know. I really don’t know.
Sometimes I step back and think it’s amazing. But when I look closely, I see something much simpler. I trusted the journey. And I never stopped learning.
If I’m not learning, I feel stagnant. Passion, for me, is a relentless pursuit. Whether it’s entrepreneurship, motherhood, friendship, leadership…I want to understand things deeply. I want to know why something works. I want to know why it doesn’t. I want to chase it until it makes sense.
That mindset is what carried me from opening a single Curves club in 2003 to helping shape Curves across Asia, Australia, and now back home again.
None of it was part of the plan.
The only thing I ever set out to do was open a successful club. Or, maybe eight.
Japan: The Opportunity That Was Bigger Than Us
After I became a franchisee and built successful clubs, my husband and I met the founders of Curves. On the drive home, my husband said, “This would be really great in Japan.”
He speaks fluent Japanese. He had been beside me through all the “crazy” of building my clubs. So we pursued a master license opportunity in Japan.
It was exciting. It was also going to be biting off more than we could chew.
Japan is a very big country. It was going to require significantly more capital than we had. We had knowledge. We had experience. We understood body composition and operations. But financially, it was a stretch.
Then another company showed up. The founders put us front and center to work with them. That company modeled their operation after my club, because at that time, clubs looked slightly different from owner to owner, and they chose mine as the template.
I met with their initial investors and answered every question: why I chose this business, what I loved about it, what made it special.
Then my husband moved to Japan for three years. His job wasn’t just to help set up the business. It was to maintain the integrity of Curves. Because sometimes when brands go overseas, they lose a little bit of what made them special. He made sure they stayed on point.
Today, Curves Japan owns our brand globally. They have built an incredible system. It’s amazing.
Australia in 30 Days
After three years in Japan, my husband returned to the U.S. The founders approached us again. There was a gap in Australia.
They asked me, “What do you know about Australia?”
I said, “Dirt, kangaroos, and Olivia Newton John.”
Everyone always says, “Why didn’t you say crocodiles?” I don’t know. I didn’t.
Thirty days later, we moved to Australia.
I had never been to Australia. I had two small children. My clubs were doing well. I was deeply involved in my co-op. But my husband had been gone three years. Being back together mattered, deeply.
I became Director of Operations for Australia and New Zealand and implemented the first Club Camp training in the region. There were many clubs, but not much formal training yet.
Working in Australia, meant working on the opposite time zone. We had calls at two in the morning. It never stopped. I had little babies. I was tired. But that’s what we did.
Meanwhile, my husband was still deeply involved in Japan. Korea was beginning to expand. Taiwan was just opening its doors. It was one of those seasons where everything seemed to be happening at once. It was fast, full, and a little bit breathless.
After about a year in Australia, where we had introduced new systems and proper training to support the clubs there, it became clear we were ready for the next step. That step turned out to be becoming master licensees of China.
Looking back, we had a bit of a pattern. We often stepped into territories that were struggling or just getting started and needed stability. We would help put structure in place, protect the integrity of the brand, and support the local teams so they could grow with confidence.
Before long, we were actively supporting Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China, all at the same time. It was a significant season of Asian expansion, and it required focus, patience, and a whole lot of trust in the process.
And none of it was part of some grand master plan.
Truly, all I ever set out to do was open one successful club, or maybe eight, if I’m being honest. I did not envision international development. I certainly did not picture Australia, China, or navigating cultural leadership differences across continents.
But I’ve learned something about this business: the unexpected consistently shows up. And if you’re willing to lean in, it will take you places you never imagined.
Leadership Across Cultures
As we expanded across Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China, I encountered something fascinating.
In the West, we operate largely in servant leadership. In parts of Asia, leadership can look more like: I am the boss. I own the business. I have the money. Therefore, I lead.
It’s not wrong. It’s just different.
But in Taiwan, I saw tension between owners and teams. Owners struggled to understand the frustrations of staff. Staff struggled to understand owners.
So I had to dissect leadership.
What is a leader?
What are the components?
I built training around a quote from John Quincy Adams:
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are a leader.”
It was simple and clear. Practical.
We broke it down: Are your actions inspiring your team? How are you helping them learn? How are you helping them become more?
Leadership isn’t positional. It’s behavioral.
And across eight countries, one thing surprised me: Women are remarkably similar everywhere.
Their responsibilities. Their concerns. Their hopes. Their focus on family and health. Their desire for community.
That universality gave me confidence that Curves could thrive globally without losing its heart.
Saying No…Twice
Australia and New Zealand were offered to us three times.
The first two times, I said no.
Not because I wasn’t capable. Not because I wasn’t interested. But because I will not abandon my team.
I’m a very transparent person. I’ll tell you exactly how it is. But more than that, if I commit to my team, I stay. I stay until we hit what we said we were going to hit. That’s just how I’m wired.
When the U.S. market approached us for the second time, the success of what was happening in Taiwan had become very obvious. The firm that had acquired Curves was paying attention. They saw the traction. They saw the growth. And they immediately asked if we would come back and step into a larger leadership role.
But we were only about three years into development in Taiwan. Everything was moving in the right direction. The systems were working. The culture was forming. The future was bright. And I knew that if I walked away at that stage, I would be walking away from the very team that had built it with me from the beginning.
I couldn’t do that.
Respectfully, I said no.
It wasn’t an easy no. It was a values-based no. I simply wasn’t finished with what I had committed to build. And when I commit, I don’t abandon.
Then, at the end of 2023, the opportunity came back again.
This time, the timing was different.
Indonesia had been established. Our teams were strong. I had invested years developing leaders, building structure, writing books on nutrition, and funneling everything I had learned back into the business. The foundation was there.
But I still had to think carefully. This role would require significant time — and not just “busy time,” but time away from family. International travel. Long stretches away. Moments you don’t get back.
My children are older now. Some of them are involved in the business, which is incredibly meaningful. And so I made the decision consciously.
When I say yes, I don’t dip my toe in. I go all in.
If I was going to do this, I was going to do it fully, with the full intention of building the success I could see was possible. I wanted it set up properly. I wanted every owner to feel heard and seen. I wanted us aligned as a team.
Because what we have at Curves is special. Truly special.
What Makes Curves Special for Me
I’ve actually written about the stories women bring into business, and particularly into the Curves business. Sometimes I sit and ask myself: what other business is like this?
Honestly, the only comparison I can come up with is a church. It’s one of the only places where you see community that strong, that bonded, that heartfelt. If someone has a better example, I’d love to hear it. I really would. Because I’ve thought about this for years.
Let me give you an example.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, she was going to be the first grandchild in our family, I had owned my club for just over a year. I was due in May. One day I walked into my club and there were over 40 women waiting for me. They had thrown me a surprise baby shower.
Now, I had already had showers. My mom threw one. My girlfriends threw one. Even my old coworkers from advertising, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, threw one.
But none of them were as big as the one my Curves members threw for me.
And that still wasn’t the most remarkable part.
Eight women hand-knitted blankets for my daughter, Scarlett.
Eight.
Not little receiving blankets. Full, beautiful, substantial blankets. Pink, of course (I love pink!) but all of them are beautifully made, thoughtfully made. I remember holding them and thinking, Do you know how long this must have taken?
They sat in their homes and knitted those blankets for me. With intention. With care.
I didn’t even know how to knit at the time. I knew how to cross stitch (I was a very good Girl Scout!) but I didn’t know how to crochet or knit like that. My grandmother did. I didn’t.
That moment stopped me.
That was the moment I knew, without question, that Curves was something far beyond what I understood it to be.
This wasn’t just fitness. This wasn’t just business.
This was love.
Maybe when you reach a certain stage in life, you begin to recognize that what really matters isn’t titles or growth charts. It’s relationships. It’s care. It’s attention. It’s the way women show up for one another.
From that baby shower forward, there have been dozens of moments like that. Moments that make you pause and think, What kind of business is this?
The relationships you have with people, the care and the love and the attention you give, and that’s what really matters. And so, having that baby shower, from that moment, I mean, I’ve had a lot of little moments that have been, I’m just unbelievable. And I think to myself, well, what, what business is like this? How is this even a business? How is it a business?
It’s more than a business. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a sisterhood.
You work out. You feel better. You meet incredible women.
Lives are saved, lives are changed. Not to mention all the women you get to employ with a wonderful job where they get to give of themselves. Like, it’s amazing.
This what makes me finally say yes.
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