Anita Rich

Anita Rich is the Chief Executive Officer of Nurses Heart to Heart and a Senior Clinical Instructor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University.

Dr. Rich earned her BSN from Emory University and her DNP from Georgia State University. Her doctoral research focused on improving professional self-perception of nurses in Mongolia and was published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Her clinical nursing career in cardiology has spanned over 44 years.

In 2010, she founded Nurses Heart to Heart, an international nursing non-profit that supports and equips nurses in developing and post-conflict countries, including Mongolia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Iraq. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Nursing and Midwifery Development Centre in Iraq.

Dr. Rich was awarded the 2023 PCNA Heart Failure Award and, in 2024, the Magnet Nurse of the Year Award for Transformational Leadership. She was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in October 2025.