Behind The Scenes Of Bayada, BrightStar’s CEO Transitions
As CEOs often set the tone for an entire organization, it’s paramount for home-based care companies to have a rigorous and airtight selection process for installing a new leader to take the helm.
BrightStar Care and Bayada Home Health Care are two companies that understand the importance of succession planning. The latter recently revealed that it has begun the selection process for its next CEO, and that David Baiada would transition to serving on the company’s board of directors once a new leader is appointed.
Even before kicking off the selection process, Bayada invested significant effort to clearly define the company’s priorities and requirements for its top executive.
“There’s been a lot of upfront work that we’ve done to talk about the competencies we’re looking for, and to align as a board and a leadership,” Teresa Carroll, a board member at Bayada and the head of the search committee, told Home Health Care News.
Moorestown, New Jersey-based Bayada provides home health, home care, hospice and behavioral health care services across 370 locations. The company also has international locations, operating in Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand and South Korea. Overall, Bayada has about 32,000 employees nationwide.
As part of its succession planning process, Bayada has teamed up with a global leader in executive searches with relationships with executive talent in health care and beyond.
“We are looking at both internal and external candidates,” Carroll said. “The process is designed to be deliberate. We’re looking for the right leader, not just the next leader. We’re focusing on values and competencies, and making sure that any candidates who make it through round one, round two and then the final round are aligned in both of those areas.”
On BrightStar Care’s end, the company completed its succession process last year. Founder Shelly Sun Berkowitz stepped down from the role of CEO, and Andrew Ray was appointed to the role.
Sun Berkowitz opened up about her personal reasons for stepping away from her role as CEO.
“In 2023, I faced a personal crisis that demanded I make an immediate choice between my company and my family,” she told HHCN. “My autistic son, who had lost five years of developmental progress during two years of remote schooling throughout the pandemic, was graduating high school, but wasn’t prepared for independent adult life. During COVID, I had worked 18+ hour days, seven days a week, for months on end, and my family had paid the price. I refused to put my son’s needs second to work again.”
Chicagoland-based BrightStar Care offers personal home care, as well as supplemental staffing and home health care. It has over 400 franchise locations across the U.S. The company was acquired by an affiliate of Peak Rock earlier this year.
Sun Berkowitz’s decision to transition out of the CEO role at the time meant that she could not conduct a traditional succession planning process. Sun Berkowitz explained that if she were able to go this route, she would’ve searched for someone to fill a president position at the company.
“They would be, effectively, running the day-to-day, but wouldn’t have the title until I spent maybe more than 20 hours a month helping them get up to speed,” she said. “That’s how I would have handled it.”
Based on certain achievements, this person would eventually move into the CEO role, while Sun Berkowitz was elevated to the position of chairwoman.
Instead of conducting the traditional search, Sun Berkowitz zeroed in on her current leadership team to find someone who was capable and willing to step up immediately.
“The answer was clear: Andy, our COO and former franchisee, who had been in the trenches with me during our most challenging period,” she said. “He didn’t just accept the CEO role; he embraced it with the understanding that sometimes leadership means making decisions based on what’s right, not what’s planned. Two years later, my son is thriving and approaching the independence we’ve worked so hard to achieve. Andy has proven that the CEO transitions aren’t always about checking boxes on an ideal candidate profile – sometimes they’re about recognizing the leader who’s already been forged in the crucible of shared challenges and mutual commitment.”
For Bayada, the celebration of the company’s 50-year anniversary put the company’s plans in focus.
“It was obvious that the anniversary is a good time to have those kinds of conversations about how we think about the next 50 years and 100 years, and achieving our vision to serve millions of people worldwide and give them the care they need in their home,” Carroll said. “I’ve been on the board for six years, and these are conversations that have been active throughout that whole time frame. It really isn’t anything other than succession planning and long-term planning that led us to this point.”
Identifying priorities
In terms of what Bayada is looking for, the company is using its core values as a guiding light.
“Our core values are compassion, excellence and reliability,” Carroll said. “Those can be core values anywhere, but at Bayada, we have the ‘Bayada Way.’ We have a very strong culture. It’s a culture of focusing on that vision of making it possible for millions of people to experience a better quality of life in the comfort of their own home. When we think about the future of the company, it’s who can come in and continue toward that vision.”
Likewise, BrightStar Care wanted a leader who understood the importance of care in the home.
“We’re in home care and we’re taking care of people’s families, [we wanted] someone with really deep empathy that understands that family journey, the resistance of our country’s parents and grandparents to losing their independence and care, and the sensitivities that are required of that into every process we execute,” Sun Berkowitz said.
She also noted that if BrightStar Care had sought to make an external CEO hire, finding an individual with experience running a multi-site service with an emphasis on customer experience would have been crucial.
Ultimately, Carroll believes it’s important for companies looking to establish a succession plan to have a strong understanding of their strategic intent.
“From your strategic intent, that then helps you decide what the competencies are and the values that you need in a future succession process,” she said. “Then you can start looking for partners. Partners have access to wonderful talent pools that you may not have access to, and it just broadens the pond.”
Carroll was quick to point out that once a new CEO takes the helm, there is still more work to be done.
“There’s a lot of work to do around onboarding, engagement and making sure that you are looking at how you’re going to manage the performance of the right CEO,” she said. “The process doesn’t end until they’re strong-footed.”
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