Senior Care, Home Care and Hospice

Leadership for an Evolving Market

Senior care, home care and hospice are rapidly changing. Successful leaders in senior care must possess a strong commitment to mission, culture and the community, as well as the ability to lead strategy and performance excellence.

WittKieffer is the only executive search firm in the nation’s top ten with a practice and team dedicated to senior care, home care and hospice services. Our roster of successful executive search engagements within the Senior Care Practice includes assignments for large, multisite senior care organizations, including retirement lifecare communities, senior housing, CCRCs, assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing providers, non-acute divisions of large health systems, leading senior care advocacy organizations and geriatric departments of academic medical centers and medical schools.

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A History of Expertise

Leveraging the firm’s distinguished history in serving healthcare organizations since 1969, WittKieffer formally established its Senior Care, Home Care and Hospice Practice in 1994. The practice offers broad and deep experience identifying leaders who are experts in senior care. We take advantage of synergies with our overall Healthcare Practice and cover the nation through our network of regional offices. We have strong relationships with healthcare and senior care leaders at the national and state level, including policymakers and leaders at advocacy and accreditation organizations.

We understand the issues and opportunities facing today’s contemporary senior living leaders. Never has it been more important to pioneer new and innovative ways to address the increasing need for senior housing and new models of care desired by today’s and tomorrow’s seniors. Ongoing innovation will be a key factor impacting the success of our clients. Given the challenges that COVID-19 and the current caregiver crisis have presented, WittKieffer is attuned to identifying leaders who will prioritize the development of partnerships, technological innovation, workforce transformation, diversity, equity and inclusion, succession planning and addressing the changing demographics of senior living residents and staff. 

Success Story

Nicole Pretre – CEO, Cedar Community
Focused on Growth and Mission

In long-term care services, it is more challenging than ever to recruit and retain exceptional employees. Cedar Community – a senior living community in rural Wisconsin – has succeeded in maintaining the quality of staff for which it has been known for nearly 70 years. CEO Nicole Pretre has prioritized the “people who take care of people,” making sure they feel valued, recognized and cared for, and improving total work force compensation. Another priority for Pretre has been diversifying the organization’s revenue streams; one way is by moving more into home-based services that complement the organization’s bricks-and-mortar business while maintaining the same standards of excellence. Pretre is pushing growth and expansion but nothing is done without consideration of the faith-based, nonprofit mission that she believes will sustain Cedar Community for many years to come.

Adam Marles – President and CEO, Lutheran Senior Services
Serving Seniors and Those Who Take Care of Them

Maintaining excellence and quality in senior living services is challenging during a global pandemic. Adam Marles, president and CEO of Missouri-based Lutheran Senior Services, has worked to help his organization – 10 communities in the entire LSS network – maintain a 4.7-star rating out of a possible 5 stars from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. His personal mission is to serve seniors as well as the individual employees who dedicate their lives to the senior care vocation. This involves striving to be as competitive as possible regarding compensation and benefits, and working to make people in the organization feel valued and appreciated. “My job as president and CEO is to do whatever I can to make sure everyone else is successful,” Marles says. His near-term goal for the organization is to emerge from COVID-19 stronger and better positioned to navigate the increasingly dynamic senior services sector than when the pandemic started.

Connect with a Practice Leader

We offer broad and deep experience in identifying and qualifying healthcare leaders who are experts in senior living and post-acute care. Practice Leader Lisa DeSimone Arthur can answer your questions or tell you more.

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