Senior Living Visionaries

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Mary Muñoz, Senior Managing Director at Ziegler, who shares valuable insights on enhancing the senior living industry's viability and sustainability. She discusses higher interest rates, expanding wellness programs, and innovative approaches like home- and community-based services. Mary emphasizes agile leadership and alignment among residents, board...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Michael Marlow, Vice President of Sales Education at Watercrest Senior Living Group. Michael shares his expertise to guide entrepreneurs to increase their lead conversion rates in the senior living services industry by focusing on personalized and fast follow-up strategies, optimizing the number of leads managed, and harnessing referrals from existin...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Sheri Peifer, President of Eskaton, a senior living provider serving over 4,000 older adults each day across a broad spectrum of service and housing offerings. As President, Sheri is a creative leader and collaborator committed to strategic transformation and operational excellence in services for older adults and families. Ensuring Viability and Sus...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Dana Wollschlager, partner and practice leader of Plante Moran Living Forward. She provided practical guidance on how to approach development projects in today’s challenging construction and financing market. Dana also shared the ingredients of a successful development or repositioning project: alignment of the project with a solid strategic plan and...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Christine Fares Walley, president of Holleran Consulting, the nation’s leading provider of engagement surveys for providers serving older adults. Jen and Chris discussed trends that Holleran is seeing in employee engagement and resident engagement since COVID, as well as employees’ greatest life stressors as reported in Holleran’s employee wellbeing...

Join host Jennifer Drago as she interviews Denise Boudreau, president of Drive, and learn how organizations can measure and improve their culture to improve recruitment and retention of team members. Even more importantly, Denise shares the drivers of culture and what simple daily actions can have a dramatic impact on your organization’s culture. Leaders in any industry will be intrigued by Denise...

On this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Jon Fletcher, Senior Vice President of Senior Housing Partners, a division of Presbyterian Homes and Services. They discussed the financial performance of middle-market senior living projects and strategies for successful middle-market development. Senior living providers will be interested to hear Jon’s expertise on how these middle market projects...

In episode 104 of the Senior Living Visionaries podcast, host Jennifer Drago and Larry Bradshaw, financial consultant and retired CEO of National Lutheran Communities and Services discuss how senior living providers can ensure their financial strength in light of our current cost and staffing pressures and occupancy challenges. They also discuss current trends and metrics that executives should mo...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Brad Paulis, Partner at Continuing Care Actuaries, and learns about current trends in retirement living as well as how he helps clients to “vision” services in the future. They also discuss one of the most promising opportunities in our industry, Continuing Care at Home (CCAH) programs. CCAH programs — which allow members to remain in their home, saf...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Mike Brindley, Chief Sales Officer at Solutions Advisors Group. They discuss warning signs and metrics that executives should look for when their community is not meeting sales or occupancy goals. They also discussed current trends and gestation periods in senior living sales and how to overcome resistance in prospects who are worried about the econo...

In this episode, host Jennifer Drago interviews Majd Alwan, PhD, digital health and aging services technology expert, and former Executive Director of LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies. They discussed some of the most promising technologies to promote safety, wellness and social connectedness among senior residents, as well as technologies that can help with staff recruitment/reten...