Leading From the Frontline: What Real Support Looks Like in Senior Living
In today’s senior living environment, leadership isn’t defined by titles—it’s defined by presence.
Join Michele Sepples, Vice President of Operations at Willow Ridge Senior Living, for a candid conversation on what it truly takes to support teams across multiple communities—without losing the human connection that drives culture and care quality.
Michele oversees day-to-day operations across 30+ communities, but what sets her apart is how she shows up: consistently, personally, and with a deep commitment to both leaders and frontline staff.
This session will go beyond leadership theory and into real-world practice.
We’ll discuss:
- How to stay connected to teams across dozens of communities
- Building trust with both executive directors and frontline caregivers
- Why “being visible” isn’t enough—and what effective presence actually looks like
- Practical ways to strengthen culture, engagement, and accountability
This is a must-attend for operators, executive directors, and senior living leaders who want to lead with intention—and create environments where both staff and residents thrive.
Event Participants
Michele Sepples, Vice President of Operations at Willow Ridge Senior Living
Michele Sepples is the Vice President of Operations at Willow Ridge Senior Living, where she supports leaders and frontline teams across a growing portfolio of communities. Since joining Willow Ridge in 2024, Michele has worked closely with executive leadership and on‑site teams to help the organization scale from six to nearly thirty communities, with a continued focus on staying connected, consistent, and grounded as the organization prepares for comparable growth in 2026.
With two decades of experience in senior living, Michele has held community‑level and multi‑site leadership roles across multiple states and regulatory environments. Her work has centered on supporting executive directors, strengthening operational consistency, and building trust with care teams through regular, meaningful connections, not just visibility for visibility’s sake.
Throughout her career, Michele has led teams through both growth and challenge, including guiding through evacuation and recovery during the Marshall Fire, an experience that reinforced her belief that leadership matters most when teams need clarity, presence, and follow‑through. Those lessons continue to inform how she shows up for teams today.
At Willow Ridge, Michele focuses on supporting people who do the work every day by helping leaders feel confident in their decisions, ensuring frontline teams feel heard and respected, and creating systems that allow communities to perform well without losing their culture. She brings a steady, experience‑driven perspective to conversations about what real support looks like in senior living operations, especially as organizations grow.
Daniel Lawson, Co-Founder and President of Business Affairs at Viking Pure Solutions
Daniel Lawson spent over a decade in the medical device industry, earning unparalleled insight into the intricacies of our health care environment and some of the biggest needs yet to be addressed. Daniel partnered with Viking Pure’s co-executive team to introduce a disruptive, patent protected, and environmentally-conscious technology to transform cleaning and infection control in commercial facilities across a wide range of industries. He is dedicated to creating a movement to remove TOXIC CHEMICALS from the environment and to challenge the status-quo of what it means to truly clean and disinfect safely, sustainably and effectively.