How NANA's CEO search will work

Walter Abernathy has run NANA since 2017 and announced last month that he will retire on June 30, 2028. Vice Chair Dominic Ferrante chairs the five-member committee the board formed to find his successor. He laid out how the search will run and when members will hear from it.

The Search Committee has five members: Ferrante, who also chairs the board's finance and audit committee; Board Chair Margaret Oyelaran; Treasurer Haruko Tanaka; Director Yolanda Pruitt-Ames; and Great Lakes chapter chair Priya Ranganathan. Ferrante said the group was chosen to mix board officers with a chapter-level perspective, since chapter relationships are a large part of the CEO's job.

The committee's timeline runs in three stages:

• Now through early 2027: position profile, market research, and confidential outreach

• March 24, 2027: a virtual member town hall where members hear directly from the committee about the process and what they're looking for — no candidate names, since the search stays confidential until an offer is signed

• November 2027: the board expects to name Abernathy's successor

No search firm has been retained as of this writing, and the committee has not said whether it will use one. Ferrante said that decision will come after the position profile is finished.

Ferrante said the committee is deliberately not setting a target list of candidate profiles yet. "We know we want someone who understands 750 organizations that don't all want the same thing from us," he said. "Beyond that, we're not going to describe the ideal candidate in a way that rules out someone we haven't thought of."

Priya Ranganathan, the Great Lakes chapter chair and the only chapter-level voice on the committee, said her role is to keep the search grounded in what chapter staff and volunteers actually need from national leadership, rather than only what the DC office needs. "The CEO's relationship with the six chapters is different from the CEO's relationship with the board," she said. "Someone has to be in the room asking whether a candidate understands that."

Abernathy will stay in the role through the transition. The board built in a four-month overlap starting in April 2028, so the incoming CEO works alongside Abernathy before he retires on June 30, 2028. NANA will hold a farewell reception for Abernathy at the National Conference Center after his last day.

Ferrante said the committee expects the town hall to be the main way members get updates before the November announcement, rather than a series of smaller briefings. "We'd rather tell everyone the same thing at the same time than have the story leak out chapter by chapter," he said.

Members with questions before March can direct them to their chapter chair, who will pass structured questions to the committee ahead of the town hall.