About Alexis Willis
* Age: 35* Education: A native of New Orleans who moved to Chattanooga in 1996, she is graduate of Girls Prepatory School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga* Career: She founded Natural Beautiful Me in 2011, worked as a connector at the Glass House Collective in 2013, as a facilitator and director of business support for Launch Chattanooga from 2013 to 2017 and as director of small business and entrepreneurship for the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce since January 2018.* Volunteer experience: Pitch coach for Launch Chattanooga and project mentor for Causeway Chattanooga.* Civic work: Board member the Virginia College of Business, Stove Works and the Leadership Chattanooga Alumni Association and is a founding member of the Greater Chattanooga Sankofa Fund for Civic Engagement.* Personal: Willis is a single mother who lives with her 10-year-old daughter in Chattanooga
Alexis Willis ran track as a student at Girls Preparatory School, but she had never swam before she decided in the fall of 2013 to enter the Ironman race in Chattanooga.
“I didn’t know how to swim before and you would have never caught me in the deep end of any pool before that experience,” Willis recalls. “But I always had dreams of going to the Olympics to run track and I thought it would be cool if an Ironman came to town to get me ready.”
Two weeks later, she learned an Ironman contest – a triathlon that includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ridge and a 26.2 mile marathon run – was coming to town in the next year.
So the then 30-year-old signed up for swim lessons at the Y and bought a bike.