“There’s just some people that you meet in life that you know you’re meant to meet.”
Such was the impression Ellen-Jo Boschert had of David Hans when the pair met at a job interview in the fall of 2022.
Hans was chief clinical officer of American Addiction Centers, which runs eight residential treatment centers across the U.S. Boschert was closing in on the position of chief operating officer for the company, which emerged from bankruptcy two years earlier.
“There was this energy between us,” Hans said of meeting Boschert.
“We were so excited to be talking to each other,” he added. “I found myself leaning in constantly during the call.”
Today, Boschert and Hans have applied that chemistry into the unusual allegiance of American Addiction Centers co-CEOs. They have run the Brentwood, Tennessee-based company since December, when Dr. Thomas Britton announced his resignation. Britton later became CEO of eating disorder treatment provider Accanto Health.
Co-CEOs are rare in behavioral health. When Hans proposed the idea to the American Addiction Centers board of directors, he said that he had no precedent to work from. The structure is not completely nonexistent elsewhere, as Hope Therapeutics announced last month co-CEOs.
In fact, the concept is rare in just about any industry. The very title of CEO suggests a person with the wisdom and self-regard to take ultimate responsibility.
Netflix has had co-CEOs for over a year, and the streaming company has said the arrangement works well. But historically, most pairings do not stick.
For Hans and Boschert, the bet is their intensive collaboration can overcome potential power struggles, or squabbles about delegating responsibility.
“Neither of us are ego-driven people,” Hans said. “We don’t lead with ego; we lead with passion, and we’re mission driven.”
An industry innovator
American Addiction Centers has been an industry innovator before, but it did not always work.
Michael Cartwright founded the company in 2007 and went about acquiring residential treatment clinics across the country.
By 2014, Cartwright and his daughter rang the opening trading bell at the New York Stock Exchange as American Addiction Centers became the first publicly traded addiction treatment provider. But by 2019, the company’s stock was delisted due to a less than $50 million market capitalization. The plunge in value followed controversies, including a $7 million civil judgment in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a California patient’s family.
American Addiction Centers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020; the company was able to restructure out of bankruptcy by the end of that year. After seeking buyers, the company’s debt owners, including Brightwood Capital Advisors and Capitol Southwest Corporation, appeared to retain company control.
American Addiction Centers confirmed that the company’s debt holders during bankruptcy restructuring now have equity stakes. These include HG Vora Capital Management, CQS LLC, and Main Street Capital Corp., along with Brightwood and Capitol Southwest.
Bowen Diehl, the CEO of Capitol Southwest, has served as board chair since 2020.
Hans joined the company in June of 2022, three months prior to Boschert coming on board. By then, American Addiction Centers was vying to rebuild its reputation and treatment model under Britton, the former CEO of nonprofit provider The Gateway Foundation.
According to Boschert, Britton implemented a standardization of care including a better understanding of why patients left treatment facilities early.
“We had a lot of good momentum happening at the time, and David and I were either involved in or running a number of those initiatives,” Boschert said, referring to the period leading up to when Britton announced his departure.
The duo convinced the board that it “would have taken a lot of time” to bring a person from outside American Addiction Centers to “carry on that momentum,” Boschert said.
Looking ahead
One piece of the company’s push toward better, more efficient care was direct communication between executive directors at each of the company’s physical centers in California, Florida (where there are two locations), Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, Rhode Island and Texas.
“We used to have very different practices from one residential program to the next,” Hans said.
He credited Boschert with getting the executive directors together “to be vulnerable” and share what was – and wasn’t – working.
As Hans and Boschert pushed management to speak with each other, they formed their own communication strategy.
Boschert’s background is as chief operating officer at national companies including MidWest Vision Partners and Colonial Management Group. Hans, meanwhile, has a doctorate in clinical psychology. Before joining American Addiction Centers, he worked as CEO of Haven Behavioral Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Despite the contrast in backgrounds, Boschert and Hans scrapped plans to substantially separate duties. Instead, they communicate as a team to the company’s 1,900 employees.
For example, they share an email address.
“When we respond,” Boshcert said. “It’s signed from the office of the CEO, and it’s got both of our pictures on it, and it works.”
“We have calls with our team every day,” Boschert said. “On those calls, it’s David and I, and whoever that person is.”
The system is time-efficient, Boshert said, because it allows the pair to quickly digest whatever perspective they each have and make a decision. Plus, they tend to intuit the other’s thoughts.
“I can tell what David is thinking by reading his eyes,” Boschert said. “We have become very close confidants and great professional partners.”
American Addiction Centers is four years removed from bankruptcy. According to Hans, the company culture has shifted “from one of survival to one of growth and innovation.”
The co-CEOs said they have expanded the partial hospitalization program and intensive outpatient treatment plans, and promise further growth over the next 12 months.
“There’s a new book of [American Addiction Centers] being written,” Boschert said. “And we get to be the authors of the book.”
