Meaghan Kennedy Birdzell is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, speaker, and teacher. For over 20 years she has been a passionate advocate for health and wellness. Her inspiration for fitness stems from her great uncle, John F. Kennedy, who spearheaded the Presidential Council on Fitness which introduced the first physical fitness curriculum into U.S. schools. The connection between her passion and her family’s legacy brought Ms. Kennedy to the Robert Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles, CA (named after her grandfather) where she taught fitness, movement skills and yoga to at-risk students.

Meaghan knows something about starting over and redefining priorities.

Over the past two and half decades, Meaghan has given more than 25,000 yoga classes, instructing more than 300k participants.

During her studies, she helped establish the first yoga program to be offered at Harvard University where she graduated cum laude. Subsequently, while employed as a business analyst by an S&P 500 firm, Meaghan continued to teach yoga classes during her free time. She left her lucrative career path the night she met a terminal cancer patient at a sushi restaurant, becoming his personal yoga teacher. 

Her new career led her to teach yoga to the likes of Hollywood A-listers like Drew Barrymore and Jim Carrey, political power players in Washington D.C., as well as running a yoga program for hundreds of at-risk middle and high school students at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles. After getting into an accident and being told she would never walk again, she founded and ran the highly successful Updog Yoga & Cycling in West Hollywood, CA for three years.

Meaghan now lives in Pacific Palisades with her husband Billy and four children. Meaghan is also on the board of The Art for Life Project, which benefitting mental health services for veterans, low-income patients, and students from inner city schools.

Meaghan is licensed 500 E-YRT (yoga teacher and trainer—taken over 15 teacher trainings and taught them too), Tantra, NLP, craniosacral therapy and hypnotherapy.