Linda Groah, MSN, RN, CNOR, NEA-BC, FAAN, has been the CEO/executive director of AORN since March 2007. A veteran perioperative nursing executive, Linda has devoted her career to perioperative nursing practice, education, and executive management. Her previous professional positions include international healthcare consultation, chief operating officer of Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, CA, nurse executive for Kaiser Foundation Hospital-San Francisco and Kaiser Foundation Hospital-South San Francisco, CA; director of nursing OR-PACU-Surgery Center at the University of California San Francisco Hospitals and Clinics; and OR director at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, GA.

Awarded AORN’s Award for Excellence in Perioperative Nursing in 1989, Linda was inducted in 2000 as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. In 2005, she received Nursing Spectrum magazine’s California and US Nursing Excellence Award for Leadership. In 2006, she was named one of San Francisco’s 100 most influential women in business. In 2012, Becker’s named Linda as one of the Ten Leaders in Clinical Quality and, in 2013, Beckers named her among the Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety.