Samantha Krieger, 26

When Samantha Krieger made the switch from healthcare consulting to hands-on management of The Bristal at Armonk assisted-living community, the training program to prepare her didn’t exist. So she proposed one, then went through it as the first participant. Eager to ditch the twice-weekly 5 a.m. flights that characterized her previous position with Huron Consulting Group, she spent months training “in a very hands-on way” at The Bristal in Armonk and its affiliated facilities in Westchester, New Jersey, and Long Island. That meant learning about everything from case management to serving food. Since June 2016, she has been the youngest-ever executive director at The Bristal, which was founded in 2000. She oversees a staff of 100, serving 140 residents. Already, she says, there has been a decrease in turnover, in part because of her “onboarding” process for new employees. Operating such a facility means getting used to many moving parts: “You can have a plan for the day,” she says, “and then something happens with a resident that you need to attend to immediately, and it derails those plans.”