Gabrielle Santulli, MBA

I really attribute my success to my parents. That's my foundation. I was fortunate enough to have two amazing parents who always instilled in us to really recognize what's beautiful in life every day, and to just believe that you can do anything you put your mind to. The showing up with heart, I'll say, is a direct reflection of them. That's who they are. Being raised by these amazing people gave me a lens to really see and be compassionate for people, and just enjoy the beauty of your everyday moments. I think that's what they were great at. They were both very connected to nature. My dad has always been an avid fly fisherman, and my mom just loved taking walks in nature. She did biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, and always enjoyed time in nature. I think there's something to that.

My best advice is to show up with your heart, make your presence be felt, and not just exist. I don't think that was possible before when I started out, but now that is 100% possible, and if you don't do that, I think you really fail to make connections and to showcase all of your attributes that you're bringing, because none of us are perfect. Old school, I don't think anyone was able to speak about personal things as a young woman. It's like, oh, you're bringing your personal life in here, we don't want to hear about that. But when you show up with heart, regardless of who's in the room with you, you're going to make a connection, and you're going to be successful, because you're bringing your passion. When I say make your presence felt, not just exist, there's enough talking heads on the screen, but when you feel something from someone, you remember them, and you're going to want to work with them. It's empowering your career, it's empowering who you are as a person, what you want to contribute to life. I think at a young age, a lot of times people are afraid to do that, and everyone's trained like we have to be perfect, but we're not. And when we can admit who we are, there are other people going through similar things.

In my field, there are exciting opportunities, including expanded roles for nurses and nurse practitioners, as well as increasing leadership demands in nursing education as healthcare continues to evolve. At the same time, we face significant challenges, such as uneven state regulations that limit nurse practitioner autonomy and the growing influence of AI and social media on the next generation of healthcare professionals. I believe that empathy and relationship-building remain uniquely human strengths, and cultivating these qualities will continue to be a key competitive advantage in our profession.

My key strategy for myself is really believing in what I do and thinking of things that could happen instead of what does happen today. It's basically a mindset that I have, and really caring about what you do. When you care about what you do and you think about things a little bit differently, it really resonates and helps us all strive to be better. I really like to connect with people and make relationships that last so we can help each other along the way. When you connect people in different ways and across different industries, I think you really bring the best to all people. A lot of times people make transactions instead of relationships, but what I do is I really like to connect with people and make relationships that last. I'm always thinking of different ways to help amplify the great work that nurses do and to educate our future nurses. That requires a lot of what I feel like I'm best at, which is connecting dots and capitalizing on relationships from my past life in corporate marketing and bringing those into nursing education and our healthcare system.