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With rising demand, workforce challenges and evolving resident expectations, the senior living industry is under pressure to rethink how to operate. The 2026 Changemakers of senior living are leading the way.
The annual Changemakers series, celebrating innovators in the senior living industry, kicks off this month. Each conversation published in Senior Housing News (SHN) honors a bold leader who is rewriting the rules of senior living and keeping residents at the center of a changing industry.
As sponsor for the eighth year in a row, we’re proud to join SHN in presenting the 2026 class of honorees. Their interviews reveal how these leaders got to where they are today and their insights into challenges faced by the industry.
Paul Boethel, 2026 Changemaker
Paul Boethel, CEO of Watermark Retirement Communities is rethinking how senior living grows, staffs, markets and delivers the resident experience. He’s standardizing operations across Watermark communities and leaning into technology and data to keep teams responsive. He advocates for the industry becoming more agile to meet the expectations of the next generation of older adults.
Read on for a glimpse into the conversation or see the full interview with SHN.
In what ways can senior living companies change the public’s perception of the industry?
The best way to change the public’s perception is for the public to experience it. That’s difficult to do at scale physically, but with a strong social media presence and engagement, we can display the experience and benefits of living in a senior living community.
As an industry, we are far behind others when it comes to social media presence and authentic engagement. We have an opportunity to showcase the experience and benefits of senior living more effectively and tell our story in a more meaningful way. As that improves, sharing more intimate, real experiences on these platforms can help deliver consistent, meaningful messages at scale.
What staffing changes does the larger senior living industry need to make to meet the staggering level of demand ahead from new residents?
In the immediate term, operators need to drive stronger rental rate growth as we approach high occupancy levels and minimal new supply. Historically, hospitals have outpaced senior housing in top-line revenue growth, achieving a 4 to 5% CAGR compared to senior housing CAGR closer to 3 to 3.5%. That disparity has contributed to a significant wage gap.
The more we’re able to push rates relative to other health care sectors, the more we can close that gap, become more competitive for high-quality talent and expand the pool of individuals willing to consider senior housing.
Long term, we’ll need to explore technologies that support care delivery. Some countries, like Japan, are already facing significant labor shortages. They are leaning heavily on robotics and predictive technologies, and they offer valuable insight into how we can improve efficiency without sacrificing the quality of the resident experience.
What advice do you have for other senior living companies implementing their own changemaking efforts?
I don’t think this will be controversial, but the planning and execution of the rollout of something new is as important as the change itself. We often spend significant time researching, modeling and testing new initiatives, but less time on implementation and execution.
An experienced project manager is invaluable. The difference between success and failure often comes down to how well a change is rolled out and adopted by the field and by residents.
Quintin King, 2026 Changemaker
For Quintin King, the path forward in senior living follows a deliberate sequence: people, process, then technology. King is president and principal of Brightwater Senior Living, a Yardi Senior Living Suite client. He’s focused on reducing friction for staff through connected systems, bringing CRM, EHR and financial tools into a single environment. Then teams spend less time chasing information and more time focused on residents and families.
Get the highlights here and explore the full interview with SHN.
What economic forces or market trends are currently changing the senior living industry?
The industry is being shaped by a growing older population with a direct opposite effect of staffing shortages. We’re seeing a disconnect between where operating fundamentals are going and how capital is underwriting those fundamentals. Labor volatility, interest rates, and insurance pressures have fundamentally changed how deals pencil, which is driving consolidation.
REITS and private equity are grabbing up a majority of the class A and B product. Consolidation is happening!
How can senior living companies change the public’s perception of the industry?
By being more transparent and telling real stories. Showing what day-to-day life actually looks like in communities, including the care, relationships and sense of purpose residents experience, can go a long way toward building trust.
At the same time, companies need to be upfront about costs and outcomes. The more honest and clear the industry can be, the easier it becomes for the public to understand the value senior living provides.
Tell us about some of your recent efforts to change the senior living industry for the better.
I’ve focused more deeply on staffing and our teams, especially understanding team members and how to make their workday less challenging. Not necessarily easier, but more efficient.
That includes cutting unnecessary processes by using more connected systems. Instead of reporting back and forth through emails, timelines and separate updates, we can use systems that already have the information and are connected to each other.
When the CRM, EHR and financial systems are connected in the same environment, there is less need to pass information along manually because it is already there. That helps reduce friction for teams and allows them to spend more time focused on the work that matters.
Nick Stengle, 2026 Changemaker
Nick Stengle sees the supply-demand dynamic as the defining force shaping senior living. Stengle, CEO and director of Brookdale Senior Living, a Yardi Senior Living Suite client, says the industry’s response is rooted in fundamentals: great service, great care and a great product. He’s thinking about workforce, technology and how AI can help senior living tell its story more boldly to a public that still doesn’t fully understand what the industry offers.
Read on for a snapshot of the conversation or see the full interview.
Is the senior living industry moving quickly enough to change in the ways that it needs to?
I’m going to be maybe a bit provocative and say I think we’re on the right pace. Where we maybe have some shortcomings is on the workforce development side. Could we do that better and more effectively?
Yes, I think so.
Some other industries and companies have beat us to it. People join those companies because of the brand and because of the industry. It would be great if we had a similar kind of connection with the burgeoning workforce. That is where I think there is still some work to do.
Can you talk about a time when you tried to execute a change & things didn’t go according to plan?
Change is definitely hard. I was CEO of the largest home health company, and we implemented a bonus program for our nurses to increase our admission rates, especially during off hours. It was truly a supplemental bonus program. They already got paid a certain amount, and we were giving them more money.
There was a massive backlash to the entire program because we did not communicate it well. We did not explain it well. There was a belief that we were taking something away, when in fact, we were giving an additional opportunity. Nothing was being taken away.
That was the moment that taught me you have to communicate. When you think someone hears you, they really don’t always hear you. You have to provide examples and be specific.
Also, sometimes when you cascade things down, you lose the message.
Now, if we have a big change, I want everyone to hear it from me first. Then we can cascade it out and do the implementation. Quite often, there is a loss in the message at every layer, and the spirit of what you are trying to drive can start getting broken apart very rapidly.
I learned that change, even if it is 100% positive, can very quickly go sideways if you do not manage it well.
What are you sick of hearing about in senior living?
I’m sick of hearing that older buildings cannot be amazingly beautiful, great products with great service. Coming from Brookdale, maybe I feel this even more, but I will tell you, we were at a big investor conference in Las Vegas in a 20-year-old building, the Encore, and it was beautiful.
Our buildings are 20 years old too. We were also in a 100-year-old building for another conference in New York, the Barclay, and that was an amazing building as well. With the right care and the right service, it works. That is what I’m tired of hearing: that older buildings cannot be amazing.
