Brookdale Senior Living : CEO Inspires Nashville’s Women Leaders

Leaders representing more than 25 of Nashville's top organizations convened for an invite-only event in late August featuring Brookdale's President and CEO Cindy Baier as the guest speaker.

Baier shared personal and professional experiences that highlighted her successful career journey and leadership philosophy. Among other things, she talked about Brookdale's success in bringing the company's board of directors to full gender parity, with four men and four women. When she accepted the CEO role in February 2018, there had been just one woman on the board. Baier talked about the importance of diverse teams, beyond just gender, for business success, commenting that research shows that businesses with diverse leadership provide better results because of the different perspectives around the table.

Baier also talked about the power of a company's culture in driving success and shared her delight in Brookdale's achievements in this area. She pointed to the 20% improvement in Brookdale's Net Promoter Score (NPS), an important measure of customer satisfaction, that was announced recently, as well as Brookdale being named recently by Fortune magazine as a top employer in Tennessee and North Carolina.

This program was an extension of the Fusion Leader Circuit (FLC), an annual leadership development program for women created by Christie Berger, a Nashville-based executive coach. It was held during the same week as Women's Equality Day, which this year

commemorates the 99th anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote in the United States.