How The Tolan Group is Leveraging Leadership for Behavioral Health’s Next Growth Phase

February 4, 2026 – Behavioral health is undergoing rapid expansion as demographic pressures, access challenges, and capital inflows converge. As the sector matures, organizations are rethinking leadership structures to support scale, governance, and long-term impact. Demand for behavioral health services is reshaping investment priorities, care delivery models, and leadership requirements across healthcare, according to Tim Tolan, founder, chairman, and managing partner of The Tolan Group (TTG). The Tolan Group has been especially active in this sector, leading multiple leadership and board engagements in response to growing demand and transformational change across the healthcare ecosystem. As a Hunt Scanlon Top 50 Healthcare Executive Search firm, TTG maintains a 100 percent focus on retained search within healthcare and added behavioral health as a core focus area more than nine years ago.

Behavioral health transaction volume has been rising year over year, according to data from TTG’s research staff. Consolidation activity across mental health, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), autism, substance use disorder, outpatient therapy, and related services increased notably in 2025, with private equity add-on activity rebounding after a multi-year decline. Starting from a market base near $185 billion in 2025, the global behavioral healthcare market could approach $240 billion to $260 billion by 2030.

Where it All Began

“In 2017, we were contacted by a board member of Elwyn, one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the United States providing education, treatment, and support services to children and adults with autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and related behavioral health challenges to find a new CEO,” said Mr. Tolan. “That engagement led to multiple additional C-level searches over the years, and just last year we placed additional executives at Elwyn. We went on to place the CEO of Lewy Body Dementia as well as many other executives across the behavioral health ecosystem,” he said.

“Many behavioral health organizations were nonprofit when we entered the space, and as private equity interest expanded, the early challenge was finding leaders with relevant PE experience,” Mr. Tolan explained. “The candidate pool was very limited. That has changed significantly, and today we are frequently engaged on C-level and senior executive roles for private equity-backed platforms, while continuing to support nonprofit behavioral health organizations.”

In addition to its broader work across healthcare services and health tech, TTG has built deep behavioral health expertise. “It really covers the waterfront for us,” Mr. Tolan said. “We have done extensive work across substance use disorder, mental health, and autism, and more recently we’ve seen an uptick in telehealth adoption. Mental health professionals are extremely difficult to recruit, and many rural and underserved communities have limited access to care. Tele-psychiatry has fundamentally changed that dynamic. The same is true in substance use disorder treatment, which continues to grow rapidly.”

Tim Tolan is founder, chairman, and managing partner of The Tolan Group. He has multiple decades of experience in both privately held and publicly traded companies in a variety of leadership roles. Mr. Tolan has deep PE expertise in placing executive leadership into portfolio companies across the healthcare sector.

CFO Needs are Multiplying Across Healthcare

TTG touches all facets of behavioral health, from mental health, autism, and IDD to substance use disorder, in both inpatient and outpatient settings, and behavioral health delivered via telehealth. “There is not one particular area where we are limited when it comes to finding human capital for our clients,” Mr. Tolan explained.

CFOs are by far the most requested role across all sectors served by the firm, and behavioral health is no exception. “We also have deep experience placing CEOs, CMOs, CROs, compliance officers, VPs of sales, operations executives, and revenue cycle leaders,” Mr. Tolan said. “Revenue cycle engagements continue to grow, both for individual leadership roles and full team buildouts.”

Related: What are Boards Doing Differently for Better Executive Appointments in 2026?

Mr. Tolan noted that leadership requirements vary materially by sub-sector and platform, often balancing clinical governance versus growth priorities, labor-intensive versus tech-enabled models, and compliance complexity versus scalability. “This is why CEO, COO, CCO, and VP of growth profiles vary dramatically across behavioral health, even within the same private equity fund,” Mr. Tolan continued. “The complexity is even greater in nonprofit environments, though the sector has shifted meaningfully as private equity participation has increased.”

Growth and Market Opportunity in 2026

“Payers and regulators continue to push care out of inpatient settings, driving significant growth in outpatient and telehealth models,” Mr. Tolan said.

Eric Arzubi, MD, founder and co-CEO of Frontier Psychiatry, a TTG client, agrees. “Over the next five years, delivering access to great care won’t be enough to stand out,” he said. “Behavioral health companies are going to need a clear and measurable value proposition for payers and other risk-bearing entities to survive,” he noted. The Tolan Group recently placed two board members and an SVP of sales for Frontier.

“This shift supports lower costs, greater scalability, and improved patient access,” said Mr. Tolan. These trends, he noted, align closely with value-based and risk-sharing models, including intensive outpatient programs, partial hospitalization programs, community mental health centers, and same-day access outpatient psychiatry.

So how does TTG identify behavioral healthcare leaders?

“After nine years, we know this market extremely well, and the market increasingly recognizes TTG as a leader in behavioral health human capital,” Mr. Tolan said. “We regularly hear from new portfolio companies and private equity firms seeking our support. A key differentiator is our true split-desk executive search model, with a dedicated business development team and a separate recruiting organization. In addition, we maintain a robust healthcare executive database and an internal technology platform that allows us to identify and engage talent across the sectors we serve.”

Looking Ahead

Three areas stand out to Mr. Tolan for accelerated impact over the next 24 months.

“First, integrated outpatient models that combine psychiatry, therapy, medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorder, and digital care pathways will scale fastest where payers support value-based reimbursement,” he said. “We are actively building leadership benches for platforms capable of operating multi-state, clinic-light footprints with strong medical governance and payer connectivity.”

“Second, pediatric and transition-age services require modern operating leaders who can balance compliance, family engagement, school partnerships, and tech-enabled access. The pipeline of leaders with both clinical depth and growth capability remains thin, and this is where our network delivers immediate leverage,” Mr. Tolan added.

“Third, data and revenue integrity will increasingly separate market leaders. As prior authorization requirements evolve and risk-sharing expands, CFOs, revenue cycle executives, and compliance leaders who can translate clinical data into clean claims and actionable insights will be mission critical. This is where we are most frequently engaged today,” he said.

TTG’s advantage lies in deep sector specialization, a proven split-desk delivery model, and a national network of executives who have already built and scaled platforms in these exact settings. “TTG places board members and senior leaders who can widen access, improve outcomes, and deliver durable, compliant performance for private equity-backed behavioral health organizations,” Mr. Tolan said.

Related: Why Executive Hiring in 2026 Must Be More Strategic Than Ever

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media