Tamara Ruggiero

Vice President of Communications and Marketing
American Kidney Fund

Tamara Ruggiero joined the American Kidney Fund in 2005. She has built the organization’s communications and marketing function from the ground up, and oversees a division of seven employees who manage the organization’s rapidly evolving communications, marketing and government relations strategies. In 2012, the American Kidney Fund achieved 370 million media impressions, grew its social media following to nearly 50,000, and expanded its grassroots Advocacy Network to nearly 1,300 patients and caregivers in 47 states and the District of Columbia.

Ms. Ruggiero came to the American Kidney Fund from Adventist HealthCare, a not-for-profit hospital system in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Her previous positions included communications and editorial work for a national human resources association and some of the nation’s largest textbook publishers. She began her career as a reporter and copy editor for a Maryland daily newspaper. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University and master’s degree in education from Mount Saint Mary’s University.