Senior Housing
Value Opportunity or Structural Challenge?
11:20 AM - 12:10 AM | Canopy B | Breakout Session
Panel Directors: Lucie Tao MAUD ‘26
This panel examines the key challenges and opportunities shaping senior housing from investment, development, and operating perspectives. Despite strong demographic tailwinds, senior housing carries a distinct risk–return profile due to its operational intensity, with performance driven by labor dynamics, cost structures, care models, and capital markets. The discussion will explore how these forces intersect to shape long-term value creation.
Moderator
Ryan Snow
Vice President - Development & Acquisition | Continental Senior Communities
Ryan leads growth strategy at Continental Senior Communities, focusing on development, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships. He works with executive leadership and capital partners to source and execute opportunities across the company’s senior living platform.
Ryan brings a decade of experience in senior housing real estate spanning finance, development, and acquisitions. Prior to joining Continental, he held roles at Herbert J. Sims & Co. and ProMatura Group, where he supported investment banking, advisory, and feasibility work across residential real estate.
Ryan holds a Master in Real Estate from Harvard University and degrees in Economics, Public Policy Leadership, and Sociology from the University of Mississippi.
Panelists
Lizbeth Heyer
President | 2Life Communities
Ensuring everyone has a safe, affordable home is Lizbeth’s life’s work. She has more than 35 years ofnonprofit and public sector experience in affordable housing development, planning, policy, andadvocacy. Since joining 2Life Communities in 2014, Lizbeth has led strategic, operational, growth andinnovation initiatives, including acquiring, developing and modernizing more than 1,100 subsidizedapartments; launching Opus, a new middle-market product; and integrating healthcare programs andfinancing with 2Life’s housing strategy.
Prior to joining 2Life, Lizbeth served as Associate Director of Public Housing and Rental Assistance forthe Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development. There, she led initiatives topreserve and reform the state’s public housing system, expand the state’s rental voucher program, andcreate the HomeBASE program that provided housing for more than 6,000 homeless families. Earlier inher career, Lizbeth led real estate efforts for the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporationand worked as a community organizer leading local, state, and national efforts to preserve expiring-use subsidized housing.
Lizbeth served as chair of the Newton Housing Partnership for 6 years and currently serves on the boardof the Citizens Housing and Planning Association. She has a master’s degree in urban planning fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology.
Philip Kroskin
Head of Real Estate and SVP Investments | Sunrise Senior Living
As Head of Real Estate at Sunrise, Philip leads real estate and investment strategy for North America, where growth is driven by more than just new buildings, it’s about shaping the future of senior living. He leads the full real estate development pipeline—from market research to site selection and entitlements through construction and stabilization—ensuring alignment with brand, operational, and financial goals.
Serving as a cross-functional leader, he bridges real estate, operations, asset management, and finance while advising Sunrise’s real estate investors (both equity and debt) and executive team on opportunities for market expansion and asset optimization. His work includes assessing new markets, analyzing regulatory and demographic conditions, and developing strategic growth initiatives for both new and aging properties. Philip focuses on opportunities that move the business forward for both Sunrise and our property investors.
Philip also oversees financing strategies and execution of raising of capital to be deployed for new developments and portfolio expansion. He partners with institutional capital and private equity to create new and expand existing relationships to support their investment strategies across senior housing. He has also focused on building new joint venture relationships, in high barrier to entry markets, with merchant developers who require an experienced luxury/premium operating partner and developer who can also fine tune their product to today’s affluent seniors’ preferences.
Philip holds degrees in Architecture and Urban & Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia. Having worked for The Mills Corporation, Bos Group, and Arthur Andersen Real Estate Services, Philip brings over 30 years of experience in real estate development, finance, and asset management.
Ayesha Menon
Managing Director of Real Estate | Bain Capital
Ayesha Menon joined Bain Capital in 2025. She is a Managing Director on the Real Estate team, co-leading the firm's investments in the Living Sector.
Prior to joining Bain Capital, Ayesha served as the EVP of Wellness Housing & Development at Welltower Inc., and a member of their Investment Committee. Welltower is a publicly traded REIT in the healthcare sector with significant holdings in senior housing, medical office properties and age targeted rental housing in the US, Canada and the UK. Previously, she held roles of Director of Real Estate Investments at Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company, and was a member of the founding team at Wheelock Street Capital, a private real estate fund manager. Ayesha began her career as an investment banker in the Real Estate Group at Goldman Sachs.
Ayesha received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and earned a BSE in civil engineering from Princeton University.
J. Justin Hutchens
Executive Vice President, Senior Housing and Chief Investment Officer | Ventas Inc.
Mr. Hutchens has been Ventas Executive Vice President, Senior Housing since March 2020 and Chief Investment Officer since January 2023. As a member of the Ventas executive leadership team, Mr. Hutchens is responsible for Ventas’s Senior Housing portfolio and, as of January 2023, for the Company’s capital allocation strategy and execution across the enterprise. Prior to joining Ventas, Mr. Hutchens served as Chief Executive Officer for HC-One, where he led the company through a significant period of refinement and growth resulting in Britain’s largest residential and nursing care home operator. Prior to that, Mr. Hutchens held senior executive and leadership positions in various publicly traded and private equity-backed organizations, including serving as President and Chief Investment Officer of HCP (now Healthpeak Properties, Inc.), a healthcare real estate investment trust (NYSE: PEAK), Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer and President of National Health Investors (NYSE: NHI), a real estate investment trust specializing in senior housing, and Chief Operating Officer of Emeritus Corporation, a senior living company that was the largest operator of assisted living facilities in the United States during his tenure and which was acquired in 2014 by Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. (NYSE: BKD).
A frequent speaker on investment practices, company performance and senior housing and care operations, Mr. Hutchens was recognized in Forbes Magazine’s Top 20 “Most Powerful CEOs Age 40 and Under” list for four consecutive years. In addition to his work at Ventas, Mr. Hutchens currently serves on the Board of Directors of Atria Senior Living, a national manager of senior housing communities, and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing. Mr. Hutchens holds Executive Certificates in Measurement and Control of Organizational Performance from the University of Michigan and Strategy and Innovation from MIT's Sloan School of Management. Mr. Hutchens earned his B.S. in Human Services from the University of Northern Colorado and his M.S. in Management from Regis University.