Pilates Teachers Association Board Members

Our management and board have a wide range of skillls to ensure that the members and the public can have confidence that we have created a structure  where highly skilled professionals have control over the activities of the association. The board will be responsible for all aspects of  membership; publications; fees ; member services;  daily operations; accounting and finance; legal  contracts; staffing; management of association; liaison with other professional bodies and Government departments; resources; ethics, grievances, appeals and complaints from members of the Public. Each member of the Management team and Board of Directors is either a Pilates Teacher or a student of the Pilates Method.

Lesley McPherson - Director and Founder

Lesley has taken a particular interest in the development of standards in the fitness industry - specifically Pilates in the UK and Europe for many years. Her first fitness qualification was group exercise to music in 1989 and was introduced to Pilates based Matwork in the late 1990s. She subsequently retrained with a comprehensive school - Peak Pilates and completed the master’s programme for Comprehensive Pilates Teachers with The Pilates Center of Boulder in 2013. Workshops and continuing education include first Generation Teachers such as Mary Bowen, Lolita San Miguel and Jay Grimes and 2nd generation Teachers including, Blossom Leilani Crawford, Lori Coleman-Brown and Junghee Won. Non -Pilates education includes workshops in golf, running and back pain and UK fitness industry courses in Medical referral, L4 back pain, Assessor and Internal Verifier. Lesley is the PTA representative at the CIMSPA Professional Standards Development group for Pilates based mat exercise and is currently a 2nd year Undergraduate at University of Strathclyde studying Psychology and Sport. She continues to teach Pilates based mat group exercise and 1-1 Comprehensive Pilates.

Lesley's ultimate goal is to lead our body of members in gaining a formal professional recognition for the Comprehensive Pilates Teacher.

Moira Lewitt - Chairperson of the Board of Directors

Moira Lewitt is a Professor at the University of the West of Scotland, having worked previously she in Australia as a Consultant Physician in Endocrinology,

Megan MacGregor

LLB Hons Dip LP

With over 25 years experience of corporate, commercial and governance law, Megan has also been an enthusiastic student of yoga and Pilates for more than 17 years and has been a full time teacher of both forms of mindful movement for the last 7 years. Prior to teaching, Megan worked full time as an IP/IT and commercial lawyer for a number of large corporate firms in Sydney, Australia and the UK.

Megan qualified as a Yoga teacher and a Pilates instructor (Mat/Reformer and Studio Pilates) through Tiaki Pilates and Yoga Wellington, New Zealand in 2011 and has completed post-qualification training in pre-natal/post-natal Pilates at Elixir in Sydney Australia plus Yoga for Kids and Families with Rainbow Kids Yoga.

She has also studied with Ana Forrest, Darren Rhodes, Sadie Nardini, Simon Park, Sarah Owens and Don Peers and most recently with BodyMindLife’s Noelle Connolly. In 2016 she completed her comprehensive Rehabilitation/Studio Pilates Certification with Polestar Pilates Australia studying directly under Polestar Educator and mentor Joanne Bezzina who was the Next Pilates Anytime Teacher 2017. Megan has continued to learn from internationally respected Pilates teachers including Courtney Miller, Olga Tamara, Blossom Leilani Crawford, Kathryn Ross-Nash and Amy Havens.

Megan is currently working towards Introductory Level Iyengar Yoga Teacher Training under Senior Level 3 teacher Helen Graham in Glasgow and is studying Complementary Therapies full time at City of Glasgow College.

Alicia Malouff

A USA citizen now living in the UK, Alicia completed The Pilates Center Teacher Training Program (Boulder, Colorado) in 2005. The program was nearly 1000 hours of instruction and internship and she understands the importance of upholding the integrity of the complete work of Joseph Pilates and the work in unique branded programmes. Alicia has worked closely with teachers from many different training programmes and was part of the founding faculty of Pure Body Teacher Training. She served on the Board of Directors of the Texas Pilates Association before moving to Glasgow, Scotland in October 2019. As a PTA board member, Alicia uses her digital and interpersonal skills to ethically represent the worldwide interests of Pilates teachers.

Roberta Trzebinski

Interested in movement and yoga since her teens, Roberta opened her own Pilates and functional movement studio in Bahrain in 2009. She joined the Pilates Teachers Association in 2016 and with specialisms in Insurance, Roberta joined the board at the beginning of 2019. As well as being a teacher trainer in Pilates, yoga, BOSU, BODYFLYING, freeFORM , BARRE she holds certifications in kinesiology, aromatherapy, reflexology, matrix rhythm therapy, barefoot science, pain management to name a few. Apart from training in her studio on a daily basis, she is a keen golfer, runner and dance. Roberta is committed to working for all in the Pilates Community and developing professional standards of practice.

Laura Turner

BA Hons Accounting & Finance, 14 years ACMA

Laura is a testament to the healing benefits of Classical Pilates and readily admits that Pilates completely revolutionised her life.

Laura suffered for several years with chronic back pain. After taking regular lessons in Classical Pilates her back pain reduced so dramatically, she was inspired to take her Pilates to the next level. From early 2012, she practised with increased focus and was accepted to enter The Pilates Centre (TPC) Teacher Training Programme - a fully comprehensive, world-renowned training. After 950 hours of internship, Laura completed the Advanced Teacher Training Program and was further inspired by a trip to TPC, Boulder, Colorado where she studied intensively with some of the best teachers in the world.

During 2015 Laura continued her studies with Cara Reeser, a second-generation Pilates Educator and a student of first generation teacher Kathleen Stanford-Grant, to complete the “Heritage Training” in Switzerland.

She worked as a full-time Pilates Teacher in Dubai for over 3 years before relocating back to Scotland in June 2016 to set up her own studio www.turnpilates.com