Melinda Phillips

CEO Mentor

Melinda Phillips is one of our CEO Mentors. She brings more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in healthcare, where she has built, scaled, and transformed organizations through every stage of the business lifecycle. As a CEO Mentor, Melinda draws on her deep experience in operational transformation, strategic execution, value creation, and people-first leadership to help CEOs and senior executives navigate complexity, lead through change, and grow with clarity and confidence. As a former Building Champions client, Melinda understands firsthand the value of having a trusted coach and mentor in your corner while navigating the challenges and opportunities of business leadership. She is passionate about providing that same guidance, perspective, and support to the clients she serves.

Prior to joining Building Champions, Melinda served as CEO and President of Thrive Skilled Pediatric Care, a private equity-backed pediatric home health care company focused on caring for medically complex children. During her tenure, she led a significant business turnaround, improved operational performance, strengthened clinical and administrative systems, and ultimately guided the company through a successful sale and merger with Aveanna Healthcare. Before serving as CEO, Melinda held senior operational leadership roles at Thrive, where she helped define the company’s operating model, improve talent acquisition and retention, and develop future leaders.

Melinda currently also serves as an Advisor for the Care@Home Center of Excellence at Arya Health, where she works with healthcare leaders, technology innovators, and private equity-backed organizations on AI-enabled innovation, operational transformation, and the future of home-based care. In this role, she helps translate real-world executive operating experience into scalable solutions that improve workflows, strengthen performance, and support better experiences for caregivers, clinicians, patients, and families. This ongoing work allows Melinda to bring current, practical insight into her mentoring relationships with CEOs and senior executives.

Earlier in her career, Melinda spent more than 25 years with BAYADA Home Health Care, a $2 billion multi-specialty nonprofit home health care organization. Her roles included President of Skilled Nursing Services, Chief People Officer, Chief Recruiting Officer, and Regional Director across both Home Health and Home Care Services. In these roles, she led large-scale teams, oversaw more than 120 service offices across 18 states, drove meaningful growth, improved operating performance, and built leadership pipelines rooted in strong talent development.

Melinda holds a Master of Science in Leadership and Change Management with a concentration in Human Resources from Pfeiffer University and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Theatre Arts with a concentration in Public Relations from Western Carolina University. She currently resides in Mocksville, North Carolina.