The co-founder of Raison d'Être, LivNordic, and RoseBar Longevity, and former Wellness Pioneer at Six Senses, launches an independent company to build the next generation of wellness and longevity environments, across hospitality, medical clinics, fitness, cruise, and corporate sectors.
STOCKHOLM, July 20, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Anna Bjurstam has launched , a company that builds wellness, longevity, and performance environments for hotels and hotel groups at every level, medical and longevity clinics, fitness companies, cruise and maritime wellness brands, corporations, and membership clubs.
Named after an ancient Aramaic phrase meaning the power of the heart, Wahayla's launch comes at an extraordinary moment for the wellness and longevity sector. A generation of serious science, on biological ageing, cellular health, the mechanisms of vitality, has arrived at the same time as unprecedented commercial demand. Organisations across hospitality, medicine, fitness, and corporate are asking for the first time what it genuinely means to build for human health rather than around it. It is a question Bjurstam has spent nearly four decades developing the tools to answer.
"The conversation in wellness has shifted. For years the ambition was to make it credible, more scientific, more measurable, more clinically serious. That work has been done, and it matters. What comes next is harder and more interesting: how do you build organisations and environments where people do not just get healthier but become more fully alive? That is the question I have been moving toward my entire career. Wahayla is where I answer it."
Bjurstam's track record is one of the most consistent in the industry, and one of the most consistently early. She helped bring SATS to Sweden before Scandinavia had a fitness industry. As co-founder of Raison d'Être, she built the consultancy behind more than 200 spas across 70 countries. She co-founded LivNordic, now one of the most recognised wellness brands at sea, and RoseBar Longevity at Six Senses Ibiza, one of the first medical longevity clinics embedded within a hotel. As Wellness Pioneer at Six Senses from 2013 to 2026, she led the transformation that made it the world's most respected wellness hospitality company, contributing to its acquisition by IHG in 2019. As a founding board member of the Global Wellness Summit since its inception, she has helped shape the defining conversations of the industry for nearly two decades.
"I have never been particularly interested in what the industry is doing. I am interested in what it is becoming, and how to build it before the market has fully named it. That has been my orientation for my entire career. Wahayla exists to do that work independently, at the pace and depth the moment requires."
What distinguishes Wahayla's approach is not only the breadth of that experience. It is a specific conviction about where the most important work in health and longevity now lies, a conviction Bjurstam has arrived at precisely because she has been at the front of the biological and scientific conversation for so long.
"We are the most health-informed generation in history, and among the most quietly depleted. To ask — Why am I here? What do I want? — is not a philosophical indulgence. It is the most practical health intervention available. The future of longevity is not longer, it is deeper, because longevity without meaning is just a long wait. And depth requires a different kind of science."
Wahayla operates at this intersection, bringing together longevity science and clinical rigour with the dimensions of consciousness, presence, and purpose that science is increasingly recognising as fundamental to long-term health outcomes. In Bjurstam's view, the organisations that understand this first will lead the next era of the industry.
Wahayla works across three distinct modes of engagement:
- Physical Environments (wellness and spa concepts, longevity clinics, fitness spaces, and maritime wellness): Wahayla moves from concept through design and launch into long-term advisory
- Hotel Groups and Hospitality Brands: Wahayla builds the wellness and longevity strategy that defines what the organisation stands for across its properties: the philosophy, the programming, the standards, and the architecture of the guest experience
- Companies Seeking Broader Strategic Direction: Wahayla works at the organisational level, advising on where wellness and longevity sit within the company's overall direction and competitive positioning
Current clients span hotel brands at every level, medical wellness clinics, major fitness companies, cruise and maritime operators, and corporate organisations.
Bjurstam's read on the decade ahead is specific. The tools of biological longevity, from precision nutrition and advanced diagnostics to cellular and hormonal medicine, are moving from specialist clinics into the mainstream faster than most organisations are prepared for. The fitness industry is at the beginning of a structural shift toward longevity and health span. The hospitality sector is realising that wellness as a spa amenity is no longer sufficient. And across all these sectors, the limiting factor is no longer science. It is wisdom to deploy it in environments where people can use it and where the human experience of technology is as carefully designed as the technology itself.
As the person who has shaped the industry's direction at each of its previous inflection points, and as a founding board member of the institution where those directions are debated, Bjurstam is among the most credible voices available on what the next chapter looks like. She is available to speak with media on the future of wellness and longevity, the structural shift underway in the fitness industry, and the integration of longevity science with the dimensions of human experience.
Wahayla is building a team of senior Directors and a curated network of collaborators across longevity medicine, hospitality, fitness, and human performance.
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ABOUT WAHAYLA
Founded in 2026 by Anna Bjurstam, Wahayla builds wellness, longevity, and performance environments for hotels and hotel groups, medical and longevity clinics, fitness companies, cruise and maritime brands, corporations, and membership clubs. The company works as a long-term partner — embedding through concept, design, and launch, then remaining as an ongoing advisory presence. Wahayla operates at the intersection of longevity science, human experience, and the dimension of consciousness and purpose that determines whether health truly takes root.
ABOUT ANNA BJURSTAM
Anna Bjurstam is the founder of Wahayla and one of the global wellness industry's most respected pioneers. Over nearly four decades she co-founded Raison d'Être (200+ spas across 70 countries), co-founded LivNordic (one of the leading cruise wellness brands), co-founded RoseBar Longevity at Six Senses Ibiza, and served as Wellness Pioneer at Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas from 2013 to 2026. A founding board member of the Global Wellness Summit, she has helped shape the industry's most important conversations since the organisation's inception. She is an angel investor in wellness and longevity ventures, a trained shamanic practitioner, and an international keynote speaker. She holds a Master's degree in Finance and is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Bjurstam is currently publishing The Expert Crisis in Longevity — a series examining who is actually qualified to guide people in the longevity era, and what the industry needs to do to close the gap between science and practice. Follow Anna on Instagram and LinkedIn at .
Media Contact
Katie Barr Cornish, Wahayla, 1 646-325-5894, [email protected]
SOURCE Wahayla
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