American Heart Association taps Kelly Jamerson to lead Middle Tennessee market
The American Heart Association has named Kelly Jamerson executive director of its Middle Tennessee market, placing a veteran nonprofit fundraiser at the center of a region-wide effort to reduce the toll of cardiovascular disease and stroke. The appointment also signals continuity for a local office that depends heavily on community partnerships, donor support and volunteer energy to advance prevention work across Nashville and surrounding communities.
Jamerson previously served as vice president of development in the same market. In that role, she helped drive fundraising growth and managed campaigns that have become central to the organization’s public profile in the region, including Heart of Middle Tennessee, Go Red for Women and the Heart Walk. Her promotion moves her from a development role into a broader operational and strategic post that will shape how the market allocates its time, money and community reach.
The organization said she will oversee market operations, fundraising, volunteer engagement and community initiatives throughout Middle Tennessee. Those responsibilities matter because the association’s local work is not limited to symbolic awareness campaigns. It depends on sustained outreach that brings blood pressure control, tobacco cessation, nutrition access and emergency response training into the daily routines of schools, workplaces, churches and civic organizations.
Jamerson’s agenda in Middle Tennessee is built around specific prevention priorities: hypertension, tobacco and vaping prevention, nutrition security, women’s health and CPR and AED awareness. Each of those areas maps to a distinct pathway in cardiovascular risk reduction. Blood pressure remains one of the clearest modifiable drivers of heart attack and stroke. Tobacco and vaping deepen vascular injury. Nutrition access influences long-term cardiometabolic risk. CPR and AED readiness affects survival in the narrow, critical minutes after cardiac arrest.
This is not a ceremonial post. It is an operational role tied to how cardiovascular prevention is delivered outside the clinic.
Beverly Miller, the organization’s region senior vice president, said Jamerson brings leadership, strategic vision and commitment to improving health outcomes. The new executive director’s professional background supports that assessment. She brings nearly 20 years of nonprofit leadership experience, a resume built on fundraising, volunteer engagement and strategic planning rather than clinical practice. That mix is often decisive in a mission-driven health organization, where community trust and financial capacity determine how far education, outreach and advocacy can reach.
Before joining the American Heart Association, Jamerson held leadership roles with the American Cancer Society and Vanderbilt University. Those positions suggest experience in two arenas that are highly relevant to a cardiovascular nonprofit: large-scale philanthropy and institutional collaboration. In public health work, the ability to align donors, volunteers, academic partners and community groups can be as important as any single campaign message. Prevention initiatives move when local leaders can translate broad goals into visible, fundable and repeatable programs.
Jamerson said it is an honor to serve as executive director for the Middle Tennessee market and emphasized working alongside staff, volunteers, donors and community partners. The statement fits the structure of the role. Local heart health work is built through coalitions, not isolated interventions. A market director has to connect the organization’s national mission with regional needs, while keeping the public-facing message understandable and actionable for people who may be weighing blood pressure screening, smoking cessation or CPR training for the first time.
Middle Tennessee presents a setting where that work carries practical weight. Regional cardiovascular outcomes are shaped not only by medical care but by the reach of prevention education, access to healthy food, exposure to tobacco products and the public’s readiness to respond to a cardiac emergency. A local executive director is positioned to influence those upstream conditions by steering campaign priorities, donor engagement and volunteer deployment toward the highest-yield interventions.
Jamerson succeeds Annie Thornhill, who has taken on a regional vice president role focused on community impact in the American Heart Association’s Midwest Region. The leadership transition reflects internal advancement rather than a change in mission direction. For an organization that relies on market-level execution, preserving institutional knowledge while shifting responsibility upward can help maintain continuity across regions and campaigns.
At the center of the appointment is a simple public health truth: reductions in heart disease and stroke rarely come from a single message or a single event. They come from repeated outreach, local credibility and the ability to keep prevention visible in places where people live and work. A market director has to make that repetition possible.
The organization’s Middle Tennessee office now places that responsibility in the hands of a leader with deep local experience and a track record in fundraising growth. The work ahead will involve more than managing programs. It will require maintaining volunteer momentum, expanding donor support and keeping prevention priorities anchored to the realities of hypertension, tobacco exposure, nutrition security and emergency response readiness in the region.
For readers and community partners, the appointment offers a clear sign of where the American Heart Association intends to focus in Middle Tennessee: local action, broader engagement and sustained attention to the conditions that drive cardiovascular risk. The next measure of success will not be the announcement itself, but how effectively the market converts this leadership change into outreach, funding and community-based prevention efforts.