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Founder / Operator·PPM Roll-Ups

Dave Bourdon

Chief Executive Officer at Lifestance Health

Southlake, Texas, United States

DB
Why they matter

As LifeStance's CEO and former CFO, Bourdon has firsthand visibility into unit economics, payer dynamics, and de novo clinic rollup strategy across the largest outpatient mental health platform.

Background

Dave Bourdon is Chief Executive Officer of LifeStance Health Group (NASDAQ: LFST), a national outpatient mental health platform, having been promoted from CFO in March 2025. He joined LifeStance as CFO in November 2022 after serving as CFO of Magellan Health, with earlier CFO-level roles at Cigna and eight years of service in the U.S. Coast Guard. He holds a BS from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and an MBA from the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business.

Notable deals

  • 2025
    Promoted from CFO to CEO of LifeStance Health Group; Ken Burdick moved to Executive Chairman
  • 2025
    Led LifeStance to its first full-year net income ($9.7M) as a public company, a year ahead of plan
  • 2022
    Appointed Chief Financial Officer of LifeStance Health, joining the executive team
  • 2020
    Appointed Chief Financial Officer of Magellan Health, a behavioral health and pharmacy management company

Call-prep brief

Background

  • CEO of LifeStance Health Group since March 2025; promoted internally from CFO (joined Nov 2022)
  • Prior CFO roles at Magellan Health (behavioral health/pharmacy management) and Cigna's Integrated Medical, Life & Disability, and International Markets businesses (~$45B revenue)
  • 8 years U.S. Coast Guard; USCGA + Maryland Smith MBA

Current Focus

  • Scaling LifeStance's outpatient mental health platform (33+ states, 550+ centers, ~7,400 clinicians)
  • Just delivered the company's first full-year GAAP profitability as a public company (FY2025), a milestone pulled forward from prior guidance
  • Balancing de novo center growth with margin expansion and payer contract improvement

What He Cares About

  • Financial discipline and predictable, beat-and-raise quarterly execution (9+ consecutive quarters of meeting/exceeding guidance before becoming CEO)
  • Clinician recruiting/retention and utilization as the core throughput constraint in a rollup model
  • Payer mix and reimbursement trends in behavioral health

Recent Moves

  • Named CEO Feb/March 2025 as Ken Burdick shifted to Executive Chairman
  • Oversaw new CFO transition (Ryan McGroarty, March 2025)
  • Reported record Q4 2025 Adjusted EBITDA margin (12.8%) and $110M full-year free cash flow

Potential Sensitivities

  • New to the CEO seat (under 18 months); may be cautious discussing forward strategy vs. IR-approved messaging
  • Public company disclosure constraints around specific payer/pricing details
  • May be sensitive to comparisons with pre-Burdick-era growth-at-all-costs model given past losses

Questions to Ask

  1. How is LifeStance's de novo center economics changing as the platform matures past first-time profitability?
  2. What's driving clinician supply/retention in your busiest markets, and how does that constrain rollup pace?
  3. How do you see payer mix (commercial vs. value-based) evolving for outpatient behavioral health over the next 2-3 years?

Outreach draft

Subject
Behavioral health rollup economics — quick call?
Dave, I lead diligence for a private equity team focused on physician practice and behavioral health rollups. Your move from CFO to CEO at LifeStance, and the platform's first full year of profitability, caught our attention as a data point on what disciplined scaling looks like in outpatient mental health. We're evaluating a handful of adjacent opportunities and would value 20-30 minutes to hear your perspective on clinician supply constraints, payer mix shifts, and de novo center unit economics as the model matures. Would you have time in the next couple of weeks? Happy to work around your schedule. Best, [Placeholder Name]

Linked companies

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