After succeeding Andy Ray as CEO of BrightStar Care, Josh Wall plans to scale the company’s service lines, targeting high-growth services including memory care, childcare and in-home therapies.

Wall, who previously helmed the youth enrichment platform Unleashed Brands as chief operating officer, also aims to modernize operations by prioritizing proprietary technology and AI-driven initiatives as BrightStar CEO. He will continue to work with Ray, who shifted to an advisory role.

Based in Chicago, BrightStar Care provides in-home care, skilled nursing, memory care, childcare and supplemental medical staffing across nearly 500 locations. Private equity firm Peak Rock Capital acquired BrightStar in 2025.

HHCN recently caught up with Wall to discuss his franchise leadership experience, the headwinds facing BrightStar Care and his growth strategy for the company.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

HHCN: Describe your top priorities as you step into the CEO role.

Wall: Early on, it’s getting to build relationships with our franchise owners and to understand where their pain points are. I need to understand where they’re having the biggest challenges in growing their businesses.

So much of our business depends on finding great talent. I’ll lean in there early to help them become employers of choice in their communities and attract great caregivers and skilled nurses who want to be a part of the BrightStar system.

How does your prior experience at Unleashed Brands equip you to be the CEO of BrightStar Care?

I’m certainly humbled to be chosen in this role, and I’m honored to serve our franchisees as we grow BrightStar moving forward.

My time at Unleashed Brands, I spent a lot of time with our brand leaders and our franchise owners and doing similar work to what I just described. It’s trying to understand where they have pain points, trying to understand how we can serve them in a way that helps them grow their businesses so we can serve more customers, and so whether that’s a brick-and-mortar business that’s open to the retail public, or whether it’s more of our community-based businesses that are mobile in nature and help find great ways to partner with franchisees.

Over time, my experience really helped me to improve those businesses and to grow our customer base.

Which growth opportunities will be most important to BrightStar Care’s strategy over the next several years?

There are several opportunities we see to help grow the business. It’s looking at our national account business and seeing how we can build more payer relationships.

Beyond that, when we think about service line extension, it’s getting into more memory care, childcare and in-home therapies. These are business lines that our franchisees have been seeing grow over the last few years. We are investing more in those categories so we can be the first call for our clients when they need a service provider like BrightStar.

What are some headwinds and tailwinds you envision experiencing in the near future?

In this market, there are a lot of options for caregivers on where to be employed.

BrightStar wants to continue to lead as a recruiter of great talent when it comes to the heartbeat of our business, which is the caregivers. We need to be able to be more competitive in that space. That’s definitely a headwind we are seeing. Being easier to do business with and to join are some areas we are leaning into.

We’re in our 24th year of business. As we as we crest towards 500 agencies here within the U.S., looking for opportunities to be able to broaden our scope from a service line standpoint is definitely a tailwind, because our clients are wanting more convenience and in-home care.

As CEO, you’ll be working with Andy Ray, who is now the advisor to you. How do you plan on working with Andy moving forward?

Andy’s been a franchise agency owner with us within the BrightStar community, then our chief operating officer, and then most recently an outgoing CEO.

He has a wealth of knowledge. I plan to be regularly tapping into that as I’m getting up to speed and serving our franchise owners well — and building stronger relationships with our vendor partners — so we can serve more clients more effectively. Andy’s been a great partner so far, and I expect that to continue in this advisory role.

Which technology investments are your highest priorities?

Right now, we have a proprietary technology system that we are investing heavily in. We partner with our franchisees to learn how we can best serve and support them through our technology. That’s a large area of investment for us.

We also have several AI initiatives throughout the network that we’re working through to find efficiencies in how we staff on a weekly basis, recruit talent and serve our clients.

What leadership lessons from your prior roles have most shaped how you’ll lead BrightStar Care?

I have a bias towards action and moving quickly. I’ve learned in the past that, just because there is a good idea and we have a vision on what needs to happen with that idea, doesn’t mean we have to run after it as fast as humanly possible.

What I’ve learned from the past is that you have to pace your change. You have to make sure you’re not running ahead of your core team or too far ahead of your franchisees that you’re supporting. That’s something I’m continually learning in leadership.