D. Leslie Boney is a seasoned healthcare executive whose career spans approximately four decades of leadership across sales, business development, mergers and acquisitions, operations, strategic partnerships, and organizational growth. With deep expertise in post-acute healthcare, Leslie has built a career around identifying opportunities, developing high-performing teams, strengthening healthcare organizations, and translating strategy into sustainable financial and operational results. Her professional experience encompasses long-term acute care hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, home health, behavioral health, senior living, occupational health, durable medical equipment, and other healthcare services. Throughout her career, she has worked alongside executive teams, clinicians, investors, health systems, and operating leaders to navigate complex growth opportunities while maintaining a strong understanding of the regulatory and operational realities of healthcare.
Leslie’s leadership philosophy has been shaped by experience across nearly every dimension of healthcare growth. She brings together sales leadership, business development, operations, M&A, strategic partnerships, and turnaround expertise rather than viewing these disciplines in isolation. This combination has enabled her to assess an organization from both a growth and operational perspective—understanding not only where new revenue can be generated, but also what infrastructure, leadership, partnerships, and execution are necessary to sustain it. Her professional profile reflects expertise in strategy, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, sales management, healthcare management, Medicare, managed care, physician relations, and business development, among other healthcare disciplines.
Most recently, Leslie served as Chief Sales Officer for Respire Homecare Services, a private-equity-backed complex respiratory durable medical equipment company. In that role, she built and trained an all-clinical sales organization of respiratory therapists operating across numerous markets and states while helping identify opportunities for continued geographic expansion. She also assumed responsibility for service recovery and relationship management involving major healthcare accounts, including Northwestern, the University of Michigan, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina. The position continued a career-long pattern of working at the intersection of clinical healthcare, commercial growth, and relationship development, while drawing on Leslie’s ability to establish sales organizations capable of operating within specialized healthcare environments.
Immediately prior, Leslie served as Senior Vice President of Strategic Development, Mergers and Acquisitions for Nova Medical Centers, where she developed a pipeline of physician-practice acquisition targets within occupational health. Her responsibilities extended from initial lead generation and outreach through negotiations involving nondisclosure agreements, letters of intent, and purchase agreements. Her tenure culminated during Nova Medical Centers’ $265 million exit to Concentra in March 2025. Earlier, as a consulting executive with Summit Healthcare and Properties, Leslie provided operational and sales consulting to a 99-bed post-acute care hospital and advised senior leadership regarding potential healthcare acquisition opportunities. These assignments further demonstrated her ability to move comfortably between enterprise strategy, transaction development, commercial execution, and hands-on operating improvement.
A defining chapter of Leslie’s executive career came with Cornerstone HealthCare Group, where she served as Chief Development Officer and Chief Sales Officer for the private-equity-backed post-acute healthcare organization. Her responsibilities included the development of long-term acute care hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, assisted living facilities, home health operations, and behavioral health hospitals. She managed M&A activity through diligence, execution, and transition to operating teams and helped establish the organization’s home health division through the acquisition of a platform operation in Phoenix. During this period, the LTAC division grew net revenue from approximately $305 million in 2019 to $415 million in 2022, while EBITDA increased from approximately $22 million to $46 million. Leslie also led a sales organization of more than 150 clinical liaisons, directors of business development, and sales leaders and participated in efforts to improve underperforming hospitals. Cornerstone ultimately exited to ScionHealth in January 2023 in a transaction valued at approximately $300 million.
Leslie’s earlier leadership at Community Hospital Corporation further illustrates her ability to scale healthcare platforms. Initially joining as Vice President of Development for the post-acute division, she advanced to Senior Vice President and President of ContinueCARE Hospitals. During her tenure, the division expanded from one to 11 LTAC hospitals and reached more than $200 million in net revenue. Leslie developed structures for hospital management and oversight, helped establish a centralized business office, and participated in scaling the home office from two employees to approximately 30. She also developed healthcare partnerships with organizations including Carolinas Health System, Palmetto Health, and Baptist Health in Kentucky and established sales structures at both corporate and local hospital levels. Importantly for her continued interest in governance, Leslie served as a board member for each of the division’s 11 LTAC hospitals, complementing her current involvement on the board of her local country club.
Her record of building healthcare organizations extends even further back. At Kessler Institute/Select Medical, Leslie served as Vice President of Development and focused on rehabilitation joint ventures with university-affiliated health systems, developing relationships with organizations including UCLA, Stanford, and the University of Arizona. At Regency Hospital Company, she helped grow the organization from two LTAC hospitals to 23 facilities with more than $350 million in net revenue. Her responsibilities expanded beyond development to include sales and admissions, oversight of more than 150 clinical liaisons, directors of community relations, and admissions coordinators, sales training for hospital executives and clinical leaders, and operational support for underperforming hospitals. Regency was ultimately sold to Select Medical in 2010 for approximately $210 million.
Earlier executive roles with Kindred HealthCare and HealthSouth helped establish the broad healthcare foundation that Leslie would carry throughout her career. At Kindred, she was responsible for developing LTAC hospitals and pulmonary units across a territory extending from Michigan through Texas. At HealthSouth, she served as National Director of Home Health and as a hospital executive, with experience involving a home health business generating approximately $250 million in annual revenue. She helped organize the Home Health Division for its sale to VNA of Massachusetts and also served as COO of a HealthSouth rehabilitation hospital in Kingsport, Tennessee. Combined with her nursing education through the University of Cincinnati and Christ Hospital School of Nursing, these experiences provided Leslie with an unusually broad perspective encompassing clinical healthcare, hospital operations, business development, commercial strategy, and executive leadership. Her professional profile additionally reflects expertise spanning long-term acute care, rehabilitation, healthcare management, patient safety, Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, and physician relations.
Across these organizations, Leslie has repeatedly operated in environments undergoing expansion, acquisition, transition, restructuring, or performance improvement. She understands how to evaluate markets, develop strategic relationships, build sales organizations, structure partnerships, support acquisitions, and connect growth initiatives with operating realities. Her experience with private-equity-backed healthcare businesses has also given her firsthand exposure to the complete organizational lifecycle—from platform development and expansion through value creation and successful exits. Her work has involved healthcare organizations and partners across the United States as well as broader global professional exposure, giving her an appreciation for the importance of adapting strategy to different markets, organizational cultures, and stakeholder needs.
Leslie’s approach to leadership is grounded in execution and accountability. She has spent much of her career working directly with operating teams rather than approaching strategy solely from the corporate level, and she recognizes that sustainable growth depends on aligning people, processes, clinical priorities, financial objectives, and market opportunities. Her background in sales management has reinforced the importance of communicating expectations clearly and developing leaders who can execute locally, while her M&A and development experience has taught her to evaluate opportunities through a longer-term strategic lens. This ability to move between enterprise-level planning and practical implementation is central to the perspective she brings to executive and boardroom conversations.
As Leslie considers additional board and advisory opportunities, she is particularly interested in bringing her experience to organizations within healthcare, the industry that has defined her professional career. She offers boards a combination of operating experience, growth strategy, sales leadership, M&A knowledge, healthcare development, and previous governance exposure. Her career provides perspective on what organizations encounter during periods of rapid expansion, integration, turnaround, ownership transition, and market development. She can contribute not simply from theoretical knowledge but from decades spent helping organizations navigate these circumstances firsthand.
Beyond her professional life, Leslie enjoys golf and travel and remains active in local board service through her country club. These interests complement a career characterized by relationship building, curiosity, collaboration, and an appreciation for connecting with people across different markets and environments. After approximately 40 years in healthcare leadership, Leslie continues to be motivated by the opportunity to contribute experience in ways that help organizations make thoughtful decisions, identify opportunities for sustainable growth, and build stronger operations for the future.
Character:
Leslie brings a leadership style grounded in accountability, persistence, relationship building, and a willingness to engage directly with the operational challenges facing an organization. Her decades of experience through periods of growth, turnaround, acquisition, and transition have reinforced a practical commitment to delivering results while building productive partnerships with executives, clinicians, investors, and operating teams.
Knowledge:
Possessing extensive healthcare knowledge developed through approximately four decades spanning post-acute care, LTAC hospitals, rehabilitation, home health, behavioral health, senior living, occupational health, respiratory DME, sales, operations, and M&A. Her nursing education and executive experience provide a perspective that connects the clinical, commercial, operational, and financial dimensions of healthcare leadership.
Strategic:
Leslie has repeatedly transformed strategic opportunities into measurable organizational growth, from expanding hospital platforms and developing new service lines to leading acquisition processes, improving underperforming operations, and supporting significant healthcare transactions. She evaluates growth through a broad lens that considers market opportunity, partnership potential, organizational capabilities, operating performance, and long-term value creation.
Communication:
Her career has required her to communicate effectively across diverse stakeholder groups, including boards, CEOs, clinical teams, sales organizations, physicians, health systems, investors, and acquisition targets. Her experience building and training large sales teams, developing strategic partnerships, negotiating transactions, and advising senior executives demonstrates an ability to translate complex objectives into clear priorities that teams can understand and execute.
