National Nurses United (NNU), the largest U.S. union and professional association of registered nurses, named Puneet Maharaj as the new executive director to lead the union. This follows a recent announcement that Maharaj has also been selected as executive director of NNU’s largest affiliate, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC). Maharaj succeeds Bonnie Castillo, RN in both of these positions.

Maharaj’s qualifications include fierce and unwavering strength, a leadership style infused with “confidence and grace,” and the clear vision necessary to fight fiercely for the union, for the nursing profession, for patients, and for communities during politically treacherous times. 

The Trump administration and corporate billionaires are trying to divide and conquer working people, replace us with artificial intelligence, rip health care and bodily autonomy away from our patients, and leave workers unprotected in every possible way. Puneet understands so clearly that we have real, transformative power to fight back by growing our union and empowering nurses and all working people to organize and resist. She has our complete confidence to lead us in these challenging times, as we fight in unbreakable solidarity to block the Trump administration’s agenda while advancing our own vision for a society and economy that value health and life, over corporate profit.

Maharaj comes to the role after working for more than 13 years in nearly every capacity at the union, including her latest position as National Political and Government Relations Director, coordinating all of the union’s federal and California state political work. Maharaj immigrated to the United States from India in 1992 with her single mother, lending to a deep understanding of the promises and challenges of life as an immigrant worker. Nurses say they are confident she will provide the fierce leadership that’s needed in this moment.

See here for a more detailed biography of Maharaj.