{"id":35945,"date":"2023-05-24T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T11:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=35945"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T23:34:19","slug":"changemaker-doris-ellie-sullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-doris-ellie-sullivan\/","title":{"rendered":"Recognizing Doris-Ellie Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cChange is always tough, even when it\u2019s good for you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those words come from Doris-Ellie Sullivan<\/a>, a 2023 Changemaker and dedicated Yardi senior living client<\/a>! As president of Retirement Unlimited, Inc.<\/a> \u2014 a 21-community organization with living options across Virginia and Florida \u2014 Sullivan knows a thing or two about skilled, innovative leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We\u2019re proud to join Senior Housing News (SHN) in recognizing Sullivan as the Changemaker she is \u2014 spotlighting her extraordinary advice and insights (gathered in a detailed interview). It\u2019s an honor to be part of this special series<\/a>, sharing inspiration from leaders like Sullivan, as sponsor for the fifth year in a row.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yardi client Doris-Ellie Sullivan named 2023 Changemaker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through her conversation with SHN as part of this year\u2019s Changemakers series<\/a>, Doris-Ellie Sullivan shares how her background has shaped her leadership style today. Coming to the senior living industry by way of the U.S. Armed Services, where she was a nurse, Sullivan\u2019s career has been guided by a passion for service and a dedication to helping others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading for a look at her insightful interview:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHN: How have you changed as a leader since starting in this industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan: I came into senior living from the military, so that was quite a big difference. Empathy and servant leadership is definitely at the core of my leadership style.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discipline and systems came across from the military, but I think it was more of the residents-centered focus \u2013 believing in the mission. Of course, our mission at Retirement Unlimited is to provide a lifestyle that our residents have earned and deserve. I think it\u2019s a different mission. I think that you have to evolve, and that\u2019s what sets me apart is evolving and always being open to learning.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHN: How do you think about timing, so that your company can innovate without getting so far ahead of the market that a new idea doesn\u2019t work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan: We launched the MyRUI app in 2019 before the pandemic. We also partnered up with a lot of companies to prepare for the pandemic, not knowing that the pandemic was coming. I don\u2019t think you can ever be early. I think innovation equates to adoption: What is the adoption at the community level? What is the adoption at the resident and family level? What is the adoption to the general public?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that if you can create adoption and not distraction in anything that you\u2019re innovating, whether it\u2019s AI or ChatGPT or some new software product or some hardware or some new system.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that we\u2019ve learned with the MyRUI app \u2014 and with any innovation that we\u2019ve put out there \u2014 is that it\u2019s not a one-time, \u201cLet\u2019s have this big party and launch it.\u201d It\u2019s every three months, you have to almost do a soft launch to keep the adoption rates going.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More showing us as shoulder-to-shoulder versus telling people that it\u2019s going to make your lives easier, that is a big difference that we have at RUI.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHN: Can you talk about how you see the need for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the industry, and what you are doing to drive change in this regard?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan: I am a female of Asian descent and started this business in the 1990s. I and several other women out there had the great opportunity of being on an all-female panel a month ago with some other pioneers like Shelley Edsen from Sonata Senior Living and Sevy Petras from Priority Life Care.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s just important to find the right candidate for the position. If everybody has that focus and they\u2019re looking for the right candidate with no judgment, I think that that blossoms into opportunity. As I said, we looked for the right candidates and created a very diverse home office, a very diverse community operations side, and a very diverse region.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That comes from trust and that comes from everybody understanding and being kind to each other but just being open. It is interesting.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have people from every facet of life in our home office. It\u2019s a beautiful thing to see everybody collaborating, and working well, and I think a lot of that is because of respect.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would hope that it comes out in what we show. When people are talking about DEI, but then you see their leadership page and it doesn\u2019t look like DEI, then it\u2019s hard for the line staff or the regional staff to believe it. I think that it\u2019s almost like one of those old adages: \u201cSee what I do, not what I say.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read Doris-Ellie Sullivan\u2019s entire interview  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want more insights from Changemaker Doris-Ellie Sullivan? Read her interview with SHN<\/a> from start to finish. If you\u2019re wanting to learn how Yardi<\/a> supports clients like Retirement Unlimited with our dynamic software solutions, reach out to our senior living team<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cChange is always tough, even when it\u2019s good for you.\u201d Those words come from Doris-Ellie Sullivan, a 2023 Changemaker and dedicated Yardi senior living client! As president of Retirement Unlimited, Inc. \u2014 a 21-community organization with living options across Virginia and Florida \u2014 Sullivan knows a thing or two about skilled, innovative leadership. We\u2019re proud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":782,"featured_media":35977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2952],"tags":[2695,842],"class_list":["post-35945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senior-living","tag-changemakers","tag-senior-living"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYardi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"See how Changemaker Doris-Ellie Sullivan is driving positive change in senior living in this 2023 series by Yardi and Senior Housing News.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-doris-ellie-sullivan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recognizing Doris-Ellie Sullivan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"See how Changemaker Doris-Ellie Sullivan is driving positive change in senior living in this 2023 series by Yardi and Senior Housing News.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-doris-ellie-sullivan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Yardi Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-24T11:52:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-22T23:34:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/05\/2023-Changemakers-DorisEllieSullivan.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Natalie Mahn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Natalie Mahn\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-doris-ellie-sullivan\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-doris-ellie-sullivan\/\",\"name\":\"Changemaker Doris-Ellie Sullivan - 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