Always on: Notes from my first NIC Conference

Andrea Hunt, Director of Business Development at Compass Associates reflects on her first NIC Conference in Chicago.

A rite of passage in senior living

Attending your first NIC is a rite of passage in senior living.

The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care has convened its Fall Conference for more than three decades; last year’s event in Austin marked its 35th anniversary. It is where the industry’s capital and its operators meet: investors, REITs, lenders, developers, operators, technology partners, and the associations that connect them.

The audience is both large and senior. NIC reports that more than 70% of attendees are C-suite or senior executives, with a balanced ratio of capital providers to the developers and operators seeking capital. In 2024, that share reached 75%.

NIC Fall Conference attendance

The room is also growing beyond its regulars. In 2025, NIC counted more than 500 first-time registrants and 150 new companies. This year, I was one of the first-timers.

I arrived to Chicago, this year’s host city, with my homework done. Weeks of targeted outreach ahead of the conference had one goal: secure face time with the leaders I most wanted to meet.

It worked. Attendees were not only open to meeting; they were glad to.

The lobby of the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk on Day 1 was electric. In the (very) dimly lit space moved a sea of (mostly) suits, punctuated by the occasional pair of sharp heels and a look of quiet determination. More on that later.

Conversations were well underway before most sessions began. Leaders clustered around coffee tables and armchairs, laptops open, agendas in motion. The room carried the unmistakable energy of business getting done.

My first conversation after collecting my badge was with a longtime connection I had never met in person. It was a fitting start to a conference built on turning names into handshakes.

Why we attended the NIC Conference

Once I had my bearings, I returned to the lobby to meet two colleagues who had flown in from the UK: Sam Leighton-Smith, Group Managing Director of Compass Recruitment Solutions, and Adam Carter, Senior Partner at Compass Carter Osborne.

After warm hugs and a few laughs, we got to work on what we came to NIC to do.

So what is that, exactly?

Compass Recruitment Solutions is a UK-born, bred, and based executive search firm specializing in elder care, behavioral health, pharma, life sciences, and addiction services. Sixteen years of strong results in the UK earned us investor backing to build a presence in the US, beginning with senior living, skilled nursing, behavioral health, and, most recently, ABA search, led by Mike Jefferys, Co-Founder of Compass Recruitment Solutions and Compass Associates US.

I joined in February to continue to open the elder care market. As the first American on the team, and its only woman, I take the responsibility seriously. I’m also enjoying every minute of it.

Day 1: Come prepared

My first stop was the Women’s Networking Meet-Up across the street at the Loews Chicago. NIC launched the Meet-Up in 2022 with Argentum’s Women in Leadership initiative, ASHA, and the Senior Housing Women’s Initiative, to support women who remain underrepresented in senior living. Within minutes, I was in conversation with asset managers, architecture firm principals, and senior living operators.

Rachel Hill, Creative Director of Senior Living Foresight was among the many welcoming women I met there. She asked to interview me about elder care recruitment: what we do, and how we do it. I was delighted to accept. (Interview coming soon!)

Then my meetings began.

This is what sets NIC apart. Everyone is there to do business, and no one pretends otherwise. Calendars are booked nearly back to back on the half hour, a format not unlike speed dating (or so I’m told). Meetings are arranged through the NIC app, through LinkedIn, and through existing relationships. Mine came from all three.

That leads to my one piece of advice for first-timers: come prepared. Have your meetings confirmed before you land. NIC offers a concentration of C-suite access that few other conferences can match, and it rewards those who plan for it. (Don’t forget to leave some room for some magic to happen).

My pitch was ready. It’s always ready. I was brought on to introduce Compass Associates to the US market, and that is precisely what I set out to do. I may not be an in-demand C-suite operator, but I’ll operate like one to get the meetings I want and get the job done.

After a run of COO meetings, I took a short break, changed for the evening, and headed to the Welcome Reception. The networking continues there, with a crowd that’s a little more relaxed. Attendees and speakers gather, make introductions, and plan the rest of their night.

Most conferences are busy. NIC is always on. The conversations, the introductions, and the deal-making never pause, and that is a large part of its value. If you want your pitch in front of the people who make decisions, NIC is the place to be.

The evening ended with an investor-hosted afterparty and dinner. By then, my feet had filed a formal complaint against my heels.

Day 2: The cost of an open seat

A lingering cold from the week before was making itself known. Again. Two very strong coffees and a bright red lipstick took care of the rest.

I started the morning with my colleagues at the only session my schedule allowed: The Case for Quality in Skilled Nursing Investment. With my team actively recruiting for a skilled nursing portfolio, I went in looking for insight to bring home. An early meeting pulled me out before the session ended.

Throughout the day, one question stayed with me, the same one I’ve been asking for months: Why is no one talking about executive search?

Workforce remains the common thread at every conference, and the data explains why. Turnover across assisted living positions was 34.5% in 2025, according to the Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service. In nursing homes, turnover among top-level executives was 22.1%: better than the year before, but still more than one in five.

Those numbers make the case for leadership. Senior living needs leaders who mentor. Leaders who teach the people skills a new generation of employees is looking for. Leaders who retain frontline teams. Leaders who bring fresh ideas to keep communities compelling for the residents and families navigating some of life’s most delicate decisions.

This is also where I saw a clear divide. Some operators, often those newer to the business or still running it the way it was run twenty years ago, see a recruitment fee as a line item to cut. The most seasoned, high-performing leaders I met see the full picture: what an empty seat costs, what’s at stake, and what the right leader returns.

The complaint I heard most from operators was about job boards. Postings draw a flood of underqualified applicants, and HR and talent acquisition teams spend hours screening résumés only to come up empty.

The math favors the second view. The national median cost of assisted living is $5,419 a month, according to A Place for Mom’s 2026 data. Picture a 100-unit community whose Executive Director seat sits open for six months, and whose occupancy slips by just five units in that time. That is more than $160,000 in lost revenue, before counting overtime, interim coverage, staff turnover, and the hours spent screening job-board résumés. Against that, a search fee looks very different.

The leaders I met with on the afternoon of Day 2 sat firmly in the second camp. COOs, CEOs, and EVPs who already know the cost of an open seat and a bad hire were genuinely open to hearing how Compass Associates works. To them, a search fee is a modest line item next to lost revenue, resident dissatisfaction, move-outs, staff turnover, and reputational risk. That is NIC’s real advantage: a room full of people who see the whole picture and take action.

Conversations held with open minds are how this industry moves forward. I’m here to have them.

Relationships over transactions

The highlight of NIC was personal: reuniting with Sam Leighton-Smith, whom I hadn’t seen since my onboarding in the UK in March, and meeting Adam Carter in person for the first time.

When your team spans an ocean, time together is not a luxury. It builds the trust and chemistry that carry us through the rest of the year, and that matters all the more while we are the new firm in the US market.

I spent a good hour with Adam on Day 2. Over 30-plus years in UK executive and C-suite search, he has become not a trusted talent partner in elder care and healthcare, but the trusted partner. His approach is grounded in relationships, not transactions.

That distinction matters. If our industry is serious about staying people-centered, it needs leaders, and partners, who work that way.

Too much of business has become transactional, and we lose sight of what it’s really about: people and connection. What I’ll carry home from NIC most is the conversations.

About that sea of suits

I promised to return to this. Men noticeably outnumbered women in the room, and the gap was sobering.

NIC does not publish attendance by gender, but there are signals. In 2024, the Women’s Networking Meet-Up drew several hundred women out of nearly 3,000 attendees.

The pattern extends well beyond NIC.

Senior living. Women make up the overwhelming majority of our workforce. Argentum’s 2019 research found women held about 70% of senior management roles yet led only 17.5% of the 115 largest providers. This year, Belmont Village President Mercedes Kerr put it more starkly: women are 75% of the industry’s workforce but hold only 40% of management positions.

Corporate America. Women hold 29% of C-suite roles, unchanged from the prior year, according to McKinsey and LeanIn.Org’s 2025 Women in the Workplace report. For every 100 men promoted to manager, 93 women are. And women who do reach the C-suite are concentrated in roles that rarely lead to CEO: in 2024, 72% of chief human resources officers were women.

Pay. Women working full time, year-round earned 84 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2025, a median gap of $11,620 a year, based on Census Bureau data. At the current pace, parity is decades away.

We have come far, but not far enough. Women still negotiate harder for every role, promotion, title, and raise, and still earn less for the same work. Representation is not a tagline. It is the baseline.

The question for all of us, NIC included, is how to put more women at the forefront of leadership and decision-making, as leaders in their own right and not as a quota.

Timing is everything 

Attending NIC in my first year with Compass Associates is an opportunity I don’t take lightly. Since I began in elder care talent acquisition, I’ve wanted to sit across from the industry’s decision-makers and understand exactly how my team can help build stronger leadership benches across senior living.

Now I have. I left Chicago with a fuller calendar, sharper conviction, and a clear view of the work ahead.

They say timing is everything. This year, the timing was mine: my moment to walk into NIC and represent Compass Associates, and to represent the women who are still too few in that room.

As women, we are expected to do everything. To lead and to nurture, to negotiate and to care, to show up polished on Day 2 with a cold and a full calendar. And we do. That is exactly why I believe, without hesitation, that as a woman I can do anything.

Does your organization need guidance or support with leadership search?

 I’m here to help. Let’s chat.

Andrea brings extensive expertise and a strategic, relationship-focused approach to recruiting within the senior living, assisted living, and Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) sectors. She has successfully partnered with organizations to place senior-level talent across a wide range of leadership positions, including Executive Directors, Sales Directors, Regional Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents of Operations, and C-suite executives. This breadth of experience provides her with a deep understanding of both community operations and executive leadership.

Recognized for delivering customized talent solutions that foster long-term organizational success, Andrea is a trusted partner for senior living operators nationwide, helping them identify and secure the high-caliber leaders needed to achieve their strategic goals.