Angela Beddoe joined the American Nurses Enterprise as Interim CEO in April 2024 and was appointed CEO in August 2024. A former corporate executive, consultant, and entrepreneur, Beddoe has more than 2 decades of executive leadership experience encompassing strategic planning and communications, stakeholder engagement strategies, business transformation and development, federal and state government relations, change management, and philanthropic engagement. A graduate of Skidmore College, she serves on the board of directors of the Center for Workforce Inclusion, and is chair 
of CWI Labs, a separate 501(c)(3) thought leadership and innovation hub that focuses on the future of work. She also is a member of the board of directors of Business for Good, a public foundation that invests in people to build better businesses, stronger communities, and a more equitable world.

You describe yourself as a nurse accomplice. Could you elaborate on this?

I’d like to credit Teshieka Curtis-Pugh, executive director of the South Carolina Nurses Association, for first identifying me as a nurse accomplice! I’m not a nurse, but nurses have been my beacon due to the extensive healthcare journeys of my close family members. I was a better caregiver and advocate because of the nurses in my life. My lifelong respect for and admiration of nurses is the reason why I accepted the position and I’m committed to ensuring that both the nursing profession and the American Nurses Enterprise thrive now and well into the future. So I’m not running alongside the car.  I’m in the car, driving it and I’m thrilled and honored to be a nurse accomplice!

What perspective does your background as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, consultant, and philanthropic leader give you in leading the American Nurses Enterprise?

I’ve been extremely blessed to have had so many different experiences in and with organizations big and small. In my experience, successful organizations regardless of size listen closely to internal and external stakeholders and partners. They value the talent, hard work, passion, and dedication of their employees. They embrace innovation, have best-in-class customer service and clear value propositions, communicating with stakeholders in strong and resonant messages. Today’s successful organizations also develop and execute bold strategic plans based on sound input, good data, and thoughtful decision making. This is our future for American Nurses Enterprise.

What have you learned so far about nurses and the nursing profession?

I already knew about the incredible power of nurses from my personal experience, and I’m continuing to appreciate learning so much more about the nursing community including that nurses:

• have been ranked the most trusted professionals by the public for 22 years,
• face sobering and even dismaying work 
environments,
• are stressed, burned out, and emotionally exhausted, and
• experience more workplace violence than correctional officers and police officers.

Against these heavy truths, nurses also:

• are completely committed to high-quality, equitable care,
• are master innovators, often seeing what others don’t see to improve and redesign care and processes,
• are at a crossroads of rapid, technology-driven change, huge cost and reimbursement concerns, and stark equity divides that drive persistent health disparities, and
• can see beyond these challenges and achieve an even stronger profession and a better future, for themselves and our society.

Each day I learn more about this incredible community.

Which key challenges and opportunities does the association face?

The American Nurses Association is an organization that has been in existance almost 130 years. While the association has played a defining role in shaping the nursing profession and advocating for nurses and nursing causes over many decades, historically we haven’t always welcomed, included, and supported all nurses as we should have. We started a journey of reckoning 4 years ago by cofounding and co-leading, with four other major nursing organizations, the National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing. As we continue our journey to creating a more equitable profession, our words and actions matter—every single day. It’s important that we’re not only diverse and inclusive, but also that we build equitable opportunities for all.

A part of that is to ensure we lean into workforce development and the workforce pipeline to encourage these opportunities. And, we need to work even harder to mitigate issues affecting the profession, such as unmanageable workloads, unsafe working conditions, and job-related mental health stress and burnout.

Unlocking innovative solutions that address the exponential changes unfolding across healthcare and in our society is imperative. We will continue to focus on growing our membership and non-membership revenue as well as ensuring the nursing programs we deliver drive impact and move the needle through credible research, storytelling, policies, and customer service. Collectively, these actions will help us fully realize The Power of Nurses™.

While acknowledging the best aspects of our legacy, we also need to leap forward with insights, innovation, and intention to ensure our success over the next 130 years.

Speaking of the future, the organization recently launched Integrating Excellence: Imagining American Nurses Enterprise into 2040. Could you describe this initiative?

This is an enterprise-wide journey to ensure that we continue leading and excelling in every way as we champion nurses and the nursing profession. We are operationalizing over 27 work groups to co-create bold ideas and strategies to ensure we’re relevant, substantive, leading the conversation, and promoting the policies and initiatives that elevate and positively impact nurses, nursing, and healthcare. This enterprise-wide journey will encompass the entire American Nurses Enterprise family including our board members, employees, and external partners to position us for the future.

The American Nurses Enterprise has launched a new brand. What’s behind this change?

The association, credentialing center, and foundation are stronger together, and our rebrand enables us to amplify our message and make a positive impact for nurses under one cohesive identity. This will ensure that our work resonates not only with nurses but also with all healthcare stakeholders and the public.

The public already sees nurses as the most trusted group of healthcare professionals in the country but might not fully realize The Power of Nurses—their incredible expertise, boundless compassion, and unyielding determination to transform end-to-end healthcare experiences for everyone. Many might not know or not appreciate nurses’ utter commitment to excellence, quality patient care, and positive practice environments. Nurses see around corners to prepare patients for the next steps in their healthcare journeys, often in subtle ways. The public also might be unaware of how creative, innovative, and constructive nurses are at finding solutions and advocating for their patients. Our new brand will be bringing all of this to the forefront.

How would you describe your leadership philosophy?

I believe in servant leadership, which puts people in organizations first, relying on their inputs, insights, and actions to accomplish ambitious goals. Together, with empathy, integrity, and empowerment, we co-create our success and achieve the future we envision together.