Servant Leadership at Work with Meredith Oppenheim, Founder & CEO, Vitality Society

While I’ve never met? Meredith Oppenheim ?in person, we connected over a shared passion for helping our seniors. As?Founder & CEO of Vitality Society,?Meredith?discusses how a passion from her teenage years has now grown into a thriving platform that empowers today’s seniors to age well by keeping them connected and engaged.

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Why did you decide to turn something so personal into a company that helps others?

I began my work serving older people when I was a teenager and my grandparents’ vitality became my priority.?In high school, I wrote a cookbook called?Snibbles, demonstrated my nutritious recipes and distributed healthy treats at senior centers so other older people could learn how to eat better to live longer and healthier lives.?I donated all the proceeds to charity and earned a U.S.?Congressional Award. For over 30 years, this has been my life mission.

After graduating from Harvard Business School in 2001, I combined this passion with my profession and began working for leading owners and operators in the senior housing industry. Because less than 10% of older people move into a senior housing community, and it was not a suitable or desirable option for my parents, I realized I had to find a way to serve most of the market where and how they wanted to stay. That is, to remain healthy at home and for as long as possible.

After witnessing the toll illness took on my dad and my mom?as his primary caregiver, I knew I could have the most significant impact by trying to add years to people’s lives and life to their years. Vitality Society is committed to improving the healthspan of those we serve by keeping?them?all connected and well wherever they live and travel.

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What does Servant Leadership mean to you?

Servant leadership is?about identifying?a need and taking?action to have a meaningful and measurable impact on the lives of others. When evaluating a servant leader, the standard success metrics, such as the number of people served or profits generated, are not always the most relevant and vital at the start of a new venture.

Nevertheless, to sustain the work of servant leadership, often with insufficient resources and numerous risks, you need to be creative and nimble, or you cannot continue the double-bottom-line work of doing well by doing good.

?To date, I have been focused on the social impact since we launched just two months before COVID began. Under ordinary circumstances, I knew what we were offering was valuable; under these new extraordinary circumstances Vitality Society lived up to its name and became vital.

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How do you apply this principle to your work at Vitality Society?

To understand and navigate the nuances of this market best, I’ve gotten up close and personal – over Zoom and beyond – with our members. Every week, I jump on as many classes as possible before our coaches start, and I lead the Friday Word Games and Sunday Enrichment Series, where I get to know and be inspired by our members. I remain a student, continuing?to learn despite more than three decades doing this work.

Based on eight guiding principles, Vitality Society has become a thriving community that has spawned many friendships and has been referred to as a “lifeline” and “lifesaver” by those we serve.?We combat social isolation because our members schedule their days and work hours around our live Zoom programming to improve their physical and mental well-being while connecting with members and coaches who share their zest for life and interests.

Our coaches, leaders in their fields, always say our members are the best, and our members say the same about our coaches. We have created a culture of kindness that permeates all we do, attract and serve. That was what I saw as a market need and opportunity.

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Vitality Society was founded about three years ago. What is your vision for the next three years?

In many ways, we have been conducting a?three-year focus group where I have gotten to know our members who have referred and guided us personally. I also have the best advisors, including movement makers and business leaders, and my mother, who holds me to the highest standards of excellence and ensures I deliver what is needed and wanted most.

We are preparing to launch our version 2.0, leveraging all we’ve learned with an added focus on scaling profitably.

The goal remains to ignite a vitality movement, as prevention and connection are the best medicine.?

We’ve mastered creating a service and experience that engages our subscribers on average five hours each week in our live fitness, wellness and enrichment programming, and it is vital we apply our proven practices to support the success of many brands spanning many industries to properly and optimally serve older customers who represent a massive longevity opportunity.??????

More than 95% of our subscribers renew each month and often mention that they wish every company made them feel as supported, appreciated and engaged as we do. It is what everyone, especially older people who are often overlooked and underserved, wants and deserves – to feel well and be treated well. I am committed to making that happen by leveraging our content-creation, community-building and concierge capabilities for many brands aligned with our vitality mission that could achieve a substantial ROI from becoming servant leaders in their respective industries, especially in health?care.

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How does Servant Leadership manifest itself in your life outside of work?

First, I fell in love with my husband because he is the kindest person I have ever met. Since we met nearly 20 years ago, he has always devoted himself to my family and me. I have the best memories of our first years together; he would visit my grandma with me every weekend. While he was raised on a different continent, speaking a different language and practicing a different religion than me, we were both raised to put family above all else.

We are now parents of a preteen, so I often think about how to lead by example. Sometimes my daughter reminds ME, “when you are even nicer to people, people will be even nicer to you, mama.” I love that she makes me an even better person during moments of exhaustion and depletion when I know I need to slow down and take even better care of myself to be even more tolerant and kinder to all around me. When you give so much to so many as a servant leader, you must also take the same excellent care of yourself.

My husband and I also decided to send our daughter from preschool to a religious school as the value system there resonated most with us. Her school curriculum and culture are grounded in recognizing the opportunity and responsibility to do good deeds to make the world a better place. Our family has loved leading and contributing to activities such as packing lunches for the homeless and assembling bikes to donate to children’s charities.