Rob Urbach has spent his career in the business of human performance. On September 16, he brings that experience to a new arena as chief executive officer of Complete Midlife Wellness Center, a medical practice dedicated to women’s health through perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. For a leader who has guided national sports organizations and built businesses, the move brings together two interests he has pursued for decades: health and high performance.
Why a Sports Executive Fits a Wellness Mission
The connection between elite sport and midlife healthcare is performance: both ask what people are capable of when they have the right expertise, support, and systems around them. Leading in either field requires more than inspiration; it demands the ability to align specialists around a mission, earn the trust of a deeply invested community, and translate ambitious goals into consistent results. Urbach served as CEO of USA Triathlon from 2011 to 2017, overseeing the national governing body of a sport with hundreds of thousands of members and thousands of events each year. During his tenure, U.S. athletes won the women’s gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and led the triathlon medal count at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. He also spearheaded USA Triathlon’s successful effort to establish women’s triathlon as an NCAA Emerging Sport for Women, transforming a strategic vision into a new collegiate pathway. The designation helped drive the creation of varsity programs, scholarships, and competitive opportunities for female athletes nationwide.
He later became CEO of the Iditarod Trail Committee, an organization built around one of the world’s most demanding endurance events. The role required leading through uncertainty, coordinating complex operations across nearly 1,000 miles of remote Alaskan terrain, and supporting athletes, volunteers, and communities as they confronted extraordinary conditions. It reinforced a lesson that has shaped Urbach’s career: immense challenges become manageable when a clear mission, exceptional people, and disciplined execution come together.
His connection to health and human performance is personal as well as professional. A nationally ranked tennis player, elite powerlifter, and physique athlete, Urbach has also completed 80 triathlons, including the Ironman World Championship in Kona. He describes himself as a lifelong student of fitness, nutrition, preventive medicine, and healthy aging. That focus on healthspan, the years a person remains strong, healthy, and fully engaged, aligns directly with the mission of Complete Midlife Wellness Center.
Stepping Into Women’s Midlife Health
Urbach is candid about an important distinction: Complete Midlife Wellness Center serves women, and he does not share the lived experience of its patients. He is approaching the role with humility and a commitment to listen, keeping the voices of female patients, physicians, and providers at the center of the organization’s decisions.
His role, as he describes it, is not to direct clinical care or define what women need. It is to build the business and operational platform that enables the clinical team to deliver the gold standard of patient care while reaching and serving more women. That has been the work of his career: turning a meaningful mission into an organization that is well run, financially sound, and capable of growing without losing what makes it distinctive. In this role, that means listening, learning, and helping remove barriers to care while keeping patients and clinicians at the center of the work.
The Practice He Is Joining
Complete Midlife Wellness Center was founded by Dr. Susan Hardwick-Smith, a board-certified gynecologist and certified menopause practitioner who has practiced in Houston since 1999. Before founding the Center, she built a well-established OB/GYN group practice in the city, then devoted the next chapter of her career to caring for women in midlife. She is also a published author.
The practice provides comprehensive hormone care, including perimenopausal and menopausal hormone therapy, as well as medical weight management, sexual and pelvic health services, and aesthetic treatments. Patients can receive care at three Houston-area offices or through virtual appointments in Texas, California, and New Mexico. Urbach cites the strength of the clinical team as one of the primary reasons he accepted the role, describing physicians, nurse practitioners, and staff united by a genuine commitment to the mission.
A Career Built Across Sports and Business
Urbach began his career with sports agent David Falk, whose clients included Michael Jordan and numerous other superstar athletes. There, he negotiated more than 300 athlete endorsement, sponsorship, licensing, and media agreements. He later served as executive vice president at Octagon, a global sports management and marketing firm, and worked in capital markets and mergers-and-acquisitions advisory before moving into sports organization leadership. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School and graduated from Centre College, where he was a three-sport athlete and an All-American tennis player. More about his leadership work and writing is available on his personal website, and his full professional history appears on LinkedIn.
When Urbach begins his new role on September 16, Complete Midlife Wellness Center will gain a leader whose career has centered on performance, organizational growth, and mission-driven communities. He will add operational leadership to an established clinical foundation, and bring decades of experience to an area of healthcare he considers both deeply meaningful and long overdue for greater attention.
