Andy Puddicombe

Andy Puddicombe (born 23 September 1972) is the co-founder of Headspace, a digital health platform that provides guided meditation training for its users. He is a former Buddhist monk with a degree in Circus Arts, and he founded Headspace, together with Richard Pierson, in London in May 2010. 2Early life and education Puddicombe was born in London but grew up in Bristol, UK. He attended Wellsway Comprehensive School in Keynsham, and studied Sports Science at De Montfort University. He also achieved a Foundation Degree in Circus Arts. 2Career 3Buddhism In 1994, Puddicombe gave up his studies in sports science and instead travelled to Asia to train as a Buddhist monk. He has attributed this in part to an effort to cope with the trauma of bereavement. His meditation training took him to Nepal, India, Burma, Thailand, Australia and Russia; culminating in full ordination at a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas. Having completed a one-year cloistered retreat in Scotland, he returned to Russia, where he taught meditation in Moscow for four years before reaching the end of his monastic commitment. In 2004 Puddicombe returned to the UK where he studied Circus Arts in London while simultaneously building his own private meditation practice in the city, wanting to make "meditation and mindfulness accessible, relevant and beneficial to as many people as possible". 3Meditation consultant Puddicombe set up a private meditation practice in 2006, and spent the next four years working as a mindfulness consultant, while adapting the language and techniques he had previously learne