Founder, Odiorne Advisory Services, LLC. Fifteen years of senior living finance and operations leadership, now in service to the field.
I've spent the last fifteen years inside Life Plan Communities — first as Controller and Director of Financial Operations at Givens Estates in Asheville, North Carolina, and since 2014 as Chief Financial Officer at RiverMead in southern New Hampshire. Before senior living, I was a financial auditor for the State of North Carolina and an accounting instructor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Across those roles I've sat at almost every table that shapes a Life Plan Community's future: capital project approvals, bond issuances, board strategic planning, audit committee reviews, succession transitions, technology adoption, departmental restructurings, and the daily operating decisions that make the difference between a community and an institution.
Odiorne Advisory Services exists because the senior living field is asking harder questions than it used to — questions about technology, about workforce, about purpose, about how to remain mission-true while also being financially sustainable across decades that look very different from the ones the original founders planned for. Boards and executive teams need thinking partners who have actually done this work, who understand the field from the inside, and who can help organizations move thoughtfully into what's next.
The firm is named for Odiorne Point on the New Hampshire seacoast. The land was settled by John Odiorne in 1660 and held by the Odiorne family across nearly three centuries — through farming, through the Civil War, through every shift the country went through — until the federal government took it during World War II to build coastal defenses. After the war, the land was returned, and in 1961 it became Odiorne Point State Park: today the largest stretch of undeveloped Atlantic coastline in New Hampshire.
That arc — multigenerational stewardship, loss, and return — is the deeper meaning behind the name. It's what good senior living advisory work looks like at its best: long, patient, careful attention to what was built and what is being built next, with the understanding that we are not the first people to care for this place and we will not be the last.
The work is fundamentally about caring for what others built, and adding to it for the people who come after.
Fifteen years sitting in the seats my clients sit in. Capital approvals, bond issuance work, audit committees, strategic plans, succession transitions, day-to-day finance leadership.
An accountant's foundation under everything. Forecasts that hold up. Models that survive scrutiny. Recommendations that survive contact with the board's finance committee.
Every recommendation tested against the organization's mission. Capital projects, technology adoption, and operational change are evaluated for whether they serve the community's reason for existing.
AI, workforce evolution, regulatory change, demographic shifts. The senior living field is transforming faster than its policies can keep up. I read what's next so my clients don't have to.
I grew up with North Carolina coast and mountains, and the journey from peak to shore — across the state of North Carolina from the Smokies to Jockey's Ridge — has been an organizing image of my life since long before it became a brand metaphor. I moved north to New Hampshire for the work at RiverMead, and the New Hampshire seacoast has become a second home. I surf the Atlantic when the swell is right and the water isn't trying to kill me.
My mother was the person who made me care about caring for others. She loved her family, loved the natural world, loved the sea, and lived every day she had to the fullest. The work I do for senior living organizations is, in a way, an extension of the work she did her whole life: paying close attention to people, seeing what is most worth caring about, and bringing love and competence to the daily practice of supporting others. The clients I most want to work with are the ones who recognize that work for what it is.
I take a small number of engagements at a time. The work is too important to spread thin, and the clients I most want to work with deserve the focus that comes with a tight portfolio. Initial conversations are exploratory and free. We'll listen carefully to what your organization is navigating, share whether and how the firm can help, and decide together whether to go further.
The easiest first step is to email me at jconley@odiorneadvisory.com or call (828) 713-2385. I'll respond within a business day.
Initial conversations are exploratory and free. Tell us briefly what your organization is working through, and we'll see whether the firm is the right fit.
Get in Touch