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The following era of senior dwelling leaders is rising with in depth expertise on the group stage, commitments to wellness and a willingness to embrace new expertise.
Latest management modifications at Civitas Senior Residing and Concord Senior Providers present how firms are redefining the CEO position to satisfy the calls for of an evolving senior dwelling setting hinging on wellness and life-style operations, the rising sophistication of the senior dwelling client base and infusing expertise to help workers and enhance service supply.
Cooper Vittitow is entering into the CEO position at Civitas having labored with the identical possession group and management staff for almost twenty years, as his transition to prime chief was a part of a long-planned succession course of on the Texas-based senior dwelling operator.
Concord Senior Providers chosen former Sodalis Senior Residing President Traci Taylor-Roberts as the following CEO of the Charleston, South Carolina-based operator after a profession spanning a number of roles together with govt director, gross sales, operations and regional roles throughout a number of firms.
Whereas they took completely different paths in rising to the highest of the respective organizations they now lead, each Vittitow’s and Taylor-Roberts, I feel each hirings signify the place the trade is headed in 2025 and into the brand new 12 months.
Extra particularly, I consider their hirings sign that firms, no matter dimension, are in search of somebody who is aware of the every day rhythm of group life with an openness to check new applied sciences that result in a senior dwelling expertise centered on wellness and life-style.
Taking inspiration from Vittitow’s baseball roots, I see a brand new type of operator chief rising in senior dwelling: the player-coach. These leaders are adept in operations and might lead the cost on the bottom, however in addition they can name strategic pictures with out getting too caught up within the blur of every day life in senior dwelling. In different phrases, they will see the sector from each the eyes of somebody standing on it in addition to a coach with a chook’s eye view from the sales space.
Whereas this isn’t a radical departure from ongoing trade developments, I feel it’s one more instance of senior dwelling operators enlisting leaders who will push their working fashions into their subsequent iterations.
On this week’s unique, members-only SHN+ Replace, I study how new hires at Civitas and Concord exemplify the following wave of senior dwelling management and provide the next takeaways:
-Why new CEOs at Civitas and Concord embody a player-coach management prototype
-How each Civitas and Concord are redefining wellness as a core competency in operations
-What their expertise and AI priorities reveal about new management in senior dwelling
Knowledge on senior dwelling leaders in 2025
This 12 months, the nation’s largest senior dwelling operator, Brookdale Senior Residing (NYSE: BKD) named Nick Stengle as its new CEO. Different organizations with new leaders on the helm additionally embody Ascension Residing, Covenant Residing, Ebenezer and WesleyLife.
Researchers with Chicago-based funding financial institution Ziegler in a current evaluation discovered 12 feminine and 38 male CEOs amongst senior dwelling suppliers in the latest LZ-200 checklist of largest U.S. senior dwelling nonprofits, in contrast with two feminine and 23 male CEOs in the latest Fortune 500 checklist. Greater than 60% of LZ 200 CEO transitions nonetheless moved from male to male leaders, with solely a small share shifting from male to feminine or sustaining a feminine CEO, the researchers discovered.
Extra senior dwelling firms have embraced co-leadership fashions this 12 months, with organizations like LTC Properties (NYSE: LTC) naming co-CEOs, Welltower (NYSE: WELL) naming co-presidents and operators taking related buildings at Pegasus Senior Residing, Gardant Administration Options, New Perspective and Savant Senior Residing.
In 2024, there have been over 2,221 CEO exits throughout a number of industries, a 19% improve from 2023, the very best stage since monitoring started by Chicago-based outplacement and profession transition agency Challenger, Grey and Christmas in 2002.
This 12 months, the agency wrote that 2025 has seen “report turnover,” rising 19% from 123 departures in July 2025 to 146 departures in August 2025. Since August, 1,504 CEOs have exited their positions, the very best quantity on report since monitoring started and a rise of 4% from 1,450 CEO exits witnessed within the first eight months of 2024, in line with CGC.
How the “player-coach” prototype is shaping future management in senior dwelling
In naming leaders with in depth operations-level expertise who can navigate wellness efforts, workforce challenges, expertise rollouts and chart new development concurrently, I see senior dwelling operators embracing what I consider because the “player-coach” mannequin.
In skilled sports activities lexicon, a “player-coach” is a staff chief in a locker room that has in depth previous expertise enjoying the game that they then coach, typically with excessive accolades from their time as a participant. I take a look at present Nationwide Soccer League (NFL) coach Mike Vrabel, who performed 14 seasons with the New England Patriots, successful three Tremendous Bowl rings, or Main League Baseball (MLB) supervisor Dave Roberts, who gained the 2004 World Sequence as a participant with the Boston Pink Sox and three championships since 2020 as supervisor of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball staff.
Vrabel and Roberts had been each revered gamers of their locker rooms after they performed, and this expertise has helped them win the belief of their present organizations.
I consider that each Vittitow and Taylor-Roberts exemplify an analogous mindset in senior dwelling. Regardless of their completely different profession paths, each newly appointed CEOs replicate this “player-coach” prototype: lengthy tenures in group roles, a willingness to spur mentorship and accountability with a sensitivity for understanding how company selections can impression workers on the group stage.
Inside management improvement that brings high-performing personnel to the highest, giving them profession paths to succeed present leaders when the time is true, is a method I feel extra operators will take sooner or later given the growing complexities – to not point out resident acuity – concerned with working a group.
Vittitow is a former collegiate baseball coach {and professional} participant within the Frontier League, and he began as an intern on the first Civitas group based by Civitas co-founders Wayne and Misti Powell in Fort Value, Texas. Whereas there, Vittitow rotated by way of almost each division.
“If we didn’t know what to do, we researched it,” Vittitow instructed me of his first days within the trade.
He finally moved up the ranks to govt director earlier than being named vice chairman and later senior vice chairman. Vittitow mentioned that he had a “hands-on position” in constructing the unique programming that later scaled into Civitas’ normal working mannequin for all communities.
Vittitow sees direct parallels between his time on the baseball diamond and in senior dwelling, noting that “high-performing groups maintain one another accountable” and stressing the significance of making a roster of “generalists” on workers that may simply transition between roles on the group stage the place wants come up on a given day, spanning gross sales, operations, eating and programming.
I feel that is analogous to how a flexible baseball participant can subject a number of positions or bat at completely different spots within the lineup and nonetheless have an out-sized impression on the end result of a sport.
Roberts, in the meantime, “grew up within the trade,” serving as govt director, salesperson, regional operations director and regional gross sales chief with roles at main operators together with Emeritus, American Home, Pegasus Senior Residing and Sodalis Senior Residing earlier than becoming a member of Concord. By her in depth expertise in a number of corporations, she mentioned she developed a “deep empathy” for govt administrators’ every day experiences.
“In my position now, I would like to have the ability to help our EDs and provides them time to spend with their residents,” Taylor-Roberts instructed me. “You may’t assist anyone or develop a extremely good plan till you really know what the wants are.”
In making future selections on firm rollouts and initiatives, Taylor-Roberts instructed me her previous expertise tells her to tempo these new initiatives to make any modifications extra palatable on the group stage, moderately than spurring worker burnout. In her first 90 to 180 days on the job as Concord’s prime chief, Taylor-Roberts mentioned she is “in search of to know” company and group wants by way of listening to key leaders. From that, she mentioned she is going to set up priorities spanning expanded coaching for workers or hiring key positions like company director of gross sales or wellness administrators.
I feel senior dwelling operators will place a excessive worth on these sorts of leaders going ahead. From gross sales and advertising to care, the companies that operators present should not getting simpler. It is smart to me that operators will search for in-the-field acumen, particularly as they develop by taking up turnaround alternatives whereas improvement is sluggish.
How new leaders at Civitas, Concord prioritize wellness, new senior dwelling mannequin
Wellness and life-style are core necessities for as we speak’s senior dwelling operators seeking to win the hearts and minds of as we speak’s older adults.
Each Vittitow and Taylor-Roberts are reframing wellness as a core precept to their firm’s working fashions by integrating scientific, social and emotional outcomes into their considering on company technique. Vittitow instructed me in his new position he needs to place Civitas regional and group leaders to “thrive, not simply comply” with regulatory backdrops within the states they function in, retooling workers priorities so as to obtain these wellness-first objectives.
The corporate fashioned a enterprise intelligence staff that pulls information from a number of methods to trace the every day lived expertise of older adults in Civitas communities, increasing past assessments and drugs information to know how communities present a wellness-focused senior dwelling expertise. This contains monitoring exercise participation, frequency of household or good friend visits and eating participation with the top purpose of utilizing information to “proactively deal with loneliness, social isolation and wellness,” Vittitow instructed me. An instance of this shift already underway for Civitas is the corporate’s “My Particular Pal” program that has group division heads deliberately visiting residents who hardly ever go away their flats and can finally be tracked by way of a “loneliness meter” that’s at present in improvement to spur social connections between workers and residents.
This dedication by Vittitow to know workers wants and prioritize group wellness dovetails seamlessly with this “player-coach” prototype I’m seeing emerge throughout the trade as a flexible chief capable of perceive all ranges of an organization’s organizational chart.
For Taylor-Roberts, the wellness and well-being of Concord residents is a “goal, not only a scientific standing,” and she or he goals to assist residents “thrive, not simply exist” whereas they stay in Concord communities. Her experiences on the group stage had been formed by group leaders who had been intentional concerning the time they spent with residents to make their experiences extra significant.
Taylor-Roberts instructed me she is pleased with Concord’s deep partnerships with dwelling well being, hospice, pharmacy and ties to doctor teams that meet biweekly to coordinate care plans so residents can age in place and have an improved high quality of life.
These priorities seem to be widespread sense, however they’re more durable to realize than just by talking them into existence. If group groups really feel valued and supported, they in flip will foster situations for residents to thrive, and as Taylor-Roberts instructed me, well-being should begin with workers help as a lot because it does with resident wants.
Being a wellness-first operator have to be greater than an indication in a workers break room and change into an working thesis that redefines what metrics matter and the way CEOs spend their time creating plans that ease the burden on community-level management.
New leaders embrace expertise and AI
Each Vittitow and Taylor-Roberts are bullish on expertise, however each instructed me that these initiatives should unlock time for group workers, not eat it, and these efforts have to be rolled out with the group’s means to make modifications whereas nonetheless chasing improved margins and resident satisfaction.
At Civitas, Vittitow remembers the corporate’s early days of scrappy innovation, studying how one can use methods on the fly and studying ways as the corporate grew. Now the corporate prides itself on trending and monitoring expertise and innovation “in a short time,” Vittitow instructed me. That has translated into Civitas making a enterprise intelligence staff that aggregates resident and operational information to help the corporate’s emphasis on its “thrive, don’t simply comply” framework. In the present day the corporate is exploring instruments throughout departments, from monitoring resident satisfaction to meals and beverage improvements like a number of eating venues so as to add extra alternative into the every day expertise of Civitas senior dwelling residents.
This deal with innovation, Vittitow instructed me, is to permit communities and departments to “perceive one another’s wants,” which permits Civitas to implement expertise sooner and in a extra focused method than previously.
Taylor-Roberts mentioned her first job earlier than signing up for brand new tech initiatives is to make sure communities are utilizing “all of the bells and whistles” of present methods earlier than including extra. She sees promise in the way forward for digital actuality (VR) headsets to permit enrichment and programming in assisted dwelling and reminiscence care to assist residents obtain bucket checklist experiences later in life. Taylor-Roberts mentioned she sees the necessity for operators to “gamify efficiency” with a points-based system with rewards that finally result in extra workers adopting new instruments.
In 2026, CEOs in senior dwelling can be judged much less on whether or not they use AI and extra so on whether or not they select the proper use circumstances, correctly tempo rollouts and tie expertise adoption again to core objectives of bettering workforce challenges and supporting wellness.
To attain these objectives, I consider senior dwelling firms should discover their “player-coach” to know frontline dynamics whereas making companywide selections.
