Behavioral Health Group Names Ex-CARD Leader as Its Next CEO

Dallas-based addiction treatment provider Behavioral Health Group has announced that its long-time CEO is stepping away from the role.

On June 25, now-former CEO Jay Higham announced his departure on LinkedIn, specifying that it was effective June 6. Behavioral Health Group also said online that the new CEO is Anthony Kilgore.

Kilgore previously served as the CEO of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) after investment and finance firm Blackstone acquired it. He held that role from 2019, succeeding founder and CEO Doreen Granpeesheh, to early 2022. Since then, he has worked at Synapse Health as CEO and at Triple Aim Partners as an executive in residence, according to his LinkedIn profile. Kilgore succeeded Granpeesheh in December 2019.

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“We have a great guy coming in, and we expect things to keep rolling on,” Higham told BHB.

In his LinkedIn post and on the phone with BHB, Higham declined to specify the recent medical diagnosis that he said would “sideline” him for about six months. He did specify he expects a full recovery and that the diagnosis has a strong likelihood of success, but that it would be an intensive course of treatment.

“It’s a significant situation — I’ll just put it that way,” Higham said. “I just didn’t feel like that (staying on as CEO) was a good thing for the company. So, I’m stepping back.”

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Higham has been the CEO of Behavioral Health Group for the past 11 years. It offers outpatient opioid treatment and recovery centers in 21 states and the District of Columbia. He planned to stay on as CEO of the company until it had completed its next recapitalization.

BHB had previously identified the company as one that was likely to be transacted sooner rather than later. Already, he said he had been contemplating taking on more of a mentorship role in the behavioral health industry and others, specifying that this might include serving on the boards of other companies.

His time as a full-time CEO at age 66, he said, is over. He also stated that Behavioral Health Group was in “great shape.”

At the end of 2018, Behavioral Health Group’s previous private equity backer, Frontenac, sold its interest in the company to The Vistria Group. Since then, Behavioral Health Group has grown significantly, including through M&A. In 2023, it announced the acquisition of the Boise, Idaho-based Center for Behavioral Health. That deal added 20 facilities to its footprint. Its website presently lists 115 locations.

Other notable CEOs in the addiction treatment space have stepped away from the proverbial corner office in recent months.

Earlier in the month, Forge Health named Rondi Rabuse to succeed co-founder and founding CEO Eric Frieman. (Frieman remains an executive at Forge Health.) Dr. Brian Holzer stepped down from the CEO role at Aware Recovery Care in May.

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