Executive Leadership

Executive
Leadership

Executive Leadership
Resort-style retirement communities in St. Louis.

Executive Leadership

Meet the Friendship Village Executive Leadership Team

Led by President and CEO Terry Walsh and governed by a local, mission-driven board of directors, Friendship Village is an excellent resource in all aspects of senior services, supporting mind, body and spirit.

Our leadership team manages all communities and business units, partnering with award-winning operations’ staff on each senior living campus and boasting some of the longest tenures in the industry:

Terry Walsh, President and CEO, Friendship Village; Executive Director, Friendship Village Sunset Hills

Terry Walsh

President and CEO, Friendship Village; Executive Director, Friendship Village Sunset Hills


Terry has been a member of the Friendship Village team since August of 2016, beginning as the Executive Director of the Sunset Hills campus (where he still serves today) and also as the President and CEO of Friendship Village Senior Services, overseeing all of the services it provides to seniors across the region.

Upon graduation from college, Terry served on active duty with the U.S. Army and retired after a 22-year career as a colonel in the Medical Service Corps. In the Army, he served in field units, jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, worked in the Pentagon, walked the DMZ in Korea, led active duty military hospitals and started and managed major portions of the military TRICARE program, focusing on population health and at-risk health plans. He also earned two master’s degrees.

Upon retiring from the army, Terry joined the corporate office of Ascension Health in St. Louis as a nonacute care operations senior director and a strategic planner, starting Ascension’s forays into retail health clinics with companies such as CVS Pharmacies; employer health clinics with companies such as Kohl’s department stores; and then senior care and senior living across the U.S.

Over time, he was tasked with the start-up of Ascension Health Senior Services, one of the largest senior care companies in the country. After getting Ascension Health Senior Care up and running, he had the opportunity to stop traveling and join Friendship Village in St. Louis, where he is now President and CEO.

Friendship Village is the only provider of a true Life Care program in Missouri, where communities take on risk for increasing costs as residents age and require higher levels of care. Terry’s background in population health and in operating every type of care, from outpatient services to hospitals to senior living and skilled nursing, has given him the opportunity to use his broad array of experience to help residents manage their health and get the most out of their senior years.

Carmen Fronczak, Executive Director, Friendship Village Chesterfield; Chief Revenue Officer, Friendship Village

Carmen Fronczak

Executive Director, Friendship Village Chesterfield; Chief Revenue Officer, Friendship Village


Mrs. Fronczak is the Chief Resource Officer at Friendship Village Senior Services and is the Executive Director for Friendship Village Chesterfield. She is passionate about being a part of seniors’ lives and strives to make a difference by delivering operational excellence. She brings 25-plus years of experience in healthcare business development, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a Master’s degree in Health Informatics, and is a Registered Nurse. Her expertise includes sales and marketing, strategic planning, start-up operations and sales team management for independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing and home health care. Since joining the company in 2013, Carmen has been integral in facilitating business growth.

Carmen’s ongoing volunteer work has become a defining characteristic for her. She currently serves on the Boards of LeadingAge Missouri, the Independence Center, and also Titan 100 St. Louis. LeadingAge Missouri is at the forefront of advocating and innovating for our senior population. The Independence Center provides a comprehensive array of services and resources to help those in need with every aspect of their mental health needs. And the St. Louis Chapter of Titan 100 connects the area’s top 100 C-Level executives to collaborate and influence to find great ways to make the St. Louis region better and better!

Kathy Francescon, Chief Financial Officer

Kathy Francescon

Chief Financial Officer


Kathy joined Friendship Village in 2022 as Controller and was promoted to Chief Financial Officer on October 1. She spent six years at Ernst & Young and was also the Director of Finance at Delmar Gardens. She has also held leadership and executive positions in a broad spectrum of both for-profit and not-for-profit entities including Monsanto (Bayer) and Mercy Health.

"I am so excited to join Friendship Village and to complete the circle of my career in senior living. I am committed to preserving the mission and helping Friendship Village to grow and touch the lives of more seniors throughout the St. Louis area."

Kathy graduated from the University of Missouri in St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and earned a masters’ degree in business administration from Northwest Missouri State University.

Kathy and her husband live in Waterloo, Illinois, enjoy playing golf, cooking, and doing anything outdoors. The have three children in their blended home: one on his own, our daughter is in graduate school at SLU, and our youngest is an undergraduate student at Westminster College in Fulton, MO.

Gayle Randa, Chief Human Resources Officer

Gayle Randa

Chief Human Resources Officer


Gayle joined the Friendship Village family of senior living communities in 2018, bringing with her more than 20 years of human resources experience in executive and senior leadership roles in multifacility and multistate senior living operations. She started her career with Via Christi Villages as Vice President of Human Resources, providing human resources leadership and strategic guidance for 11 communities, with 1,000 leaders and staff located in Kansas and Oklahoma City. Gayle moved with her family to St. Louis in 2014 to serve as Chief Human Resources Officer for Ascension Health Senior Care, the senior care subsidiary of Ascension Health, one of the nation’s largest health systems.

Her passion is to cultivate happy, motivated and engaged employees — not only through competitive compensation and benefit programs, but through appropriate training and education. She is also dedicated to showing all employees the respect they deserve and the value they bring to the organization.

Gayle holds an Associate of Arts and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wichita State University, as well as a Master of Human Resources Development from Webster University.

To serve faithfully and with grace; to lift others up through physical, spiritual and emotional care; to build a respectful community enriched by joyful living — this is our mission.

The Leadership Team