Senior Living Operator Agemark Staffs Up For Next Growth Period

Senior living operator Agemark Senior Living is preparing for new growth, including by expanding its leadership team.

Last year, the Orinda, California-based operator shifted to a co-CEO leadership model with Michael Pittore and Forrest Westin both sharing the leadership responsibilities. In late March, the operator promoted six leaders across the company, four of which were elevated to executive or senior vice president roles, as it prepares for growth over the next decade.

“It was as much recognition as it is setting up our tenured leaders to be part of decision making as an organization,” Pittore told Senior Housing News.

Among the promotions are Ryan Cole, who is the operator’s new chief financial officer; and Matt Rezkalla, who is the company’s chief investment officer. The company’s leaders also promoted Ashley Gloystein-Klatt and Lisa Graham to senior vice presidents of marketing and communication and human resources, respectively. The operator created the roles to “stay nimble.” With a restructured and more efficient organization, Agemark is seeking out growth.

Agemark in the last year worked closely with Allen Flores Consulting Group, which helped rewrite the operator’s clinical policies to reduce issues such as missed medications and falls. The company implemented a business intelligence platform to track a number of operation factors, including labor efficiency ratios, revenue leakage and occupancy.

“Instead of having clinical regionals like we’ve had in the past, we have Alan Flores, this whole team of traveling nurses,” Pittore said. “That has really allowed us to get ahead of the ball, which has been the goal with all this, to just really become proactive.”

Agemark has a “number of deals” in Omaha, Nebraska and across California with new acquisitions and management takeovers with new and existing partners, though Pittore said he currently couldn’t share more specific details. Agemark plans to add four or five properties totaling 600 and 700 units into the operator’s portfolio. Agemark is also looking at acquiring other management companies, and Pittore “expects more to come” from those plans.

Agemark used to focus on growth through development, but like the rest of the industry, has put those plans on pause.

“We talked to a lot of developers, and none of the deals that they’ve been talking about with us have started to pencil yet,” Pittore said. “But I suspect, based on what I heard at NIC [Spring Conference] that those will start happening too, but I haven’t really factored that in.”

For the remainder of the year, Agemark is going to focus on further enhancing the results it’s seeing for net operating income, margin and clinical outcomes.

“I think that will lead to a lot of opportunities for us in the coming year and beyond,” Pittore said. “I suspect people will hear a lot more about us … it should be exciting.”

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