Speaker — Owner & CEO, Amada Senior Care NorthShore

Most leadership lessons come from a boardroom. Jenny’s came from a nursing home floor in 1991, where she started as an Activity Aide — long before she ever led a team. That’s where she learned the thing most leaders never do: how to lead people who are tired, afraid, and depending on you completely.

That lesson scaled. Today, Jenny is Owner and CEO of Amada Senior Care NorthShore, leading a team of more than 20 office professionals and 250 caregivers, who together deliver nearly 20,000 hours of care every month across Chicago. She built that team from the ground up after founding the company in 2017, in the wake of losing both of her in-laws to cancer — turning personal grief into a leadership mission almost overnight.

Her academic path is as unconventional as her leadership style: degrees in Theater and Communications, master’s degrees in Gerontology and Therapeutic Recreation, and a current PhD candidacy in Gerontology. As a Dementia Connection Specialist, Certified Trainer, and Certified Dementia Practitioner Trainer, she has spent years teaching other leaders how to build cultures of patience, purpose, and excellence under real pressure.

Married 30 years to her husband Jim — her friend since kindergarten — and a mother of four, Jenny leads a life built on the same principles she teaches: consistency, faith, and showing up for the people who depend on you.

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Leading Under Pressure: What 30 Years on the Front Lines Taught Me About Culture

Jenny Novy didn’t learn leadership in a classroom — she learned it in 1991, on the floor of a Chicago nursing home, caring for people at their most vulnerable. Three decades later, she leads a team of more than 20 office professionals and 250 caregivers, built on the same principle: real leadership shows up when things are hardest. Drawing on her experience scaling a high-stakes, high-burnout industry, Jenny will challenge leaders to rethink what culture-building actually requires — not perks or slogans, but consistency, humility, and the discipline to keep showing up for your people, day after day, especially when no one’s watching.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR ATTENDEES

• How to build a culture of trust and excellence under real, sustained pressure
• Practical strategies for retaining and developing high-performing teams
• Lessons on leading with consistency and humility for the long haul
• A renewed perspective on what leadership actually requires, day to day