Women To Watch 10.12.25 - Flipbook - Page 20
Peggy Norton-Rosko
59, senior vice president and chief nurse executive,
University of Maryland Medical System
KAREN JACKSON/FREELANCE PHOTOS
Vonnya Pettigrew
49, CEO, Root Branch Productions and Film Academy
Vonnya Pettigrew has spent 15 years visiting city public schools and teaching
video-savvy youths the flip side of filmmaking — performing not in front of the
camera, but behind it.
“We help kids go beyond watching videos all day by learning how to make them,”
said Pettigrew, CEO of Root Branch Productions and Film Academy in Canton.
“We teach them technical skills, from directing to storyboarding to editing. They
become strong communicators and learn that there are other paths to careers and
wealth in the media world besides being a celebrity.”
The program is a passion for Pettigrew, a graduate of University of Maryland,
College Park, whose media firm since 2006 has also created training films for
government agencies and worked with small-business owners, helping startups
to market themselves.
“Supporting urban communities is part of what I want my legacy to be,” she said.
Pettigrew and her staff of 50 operate from a warehouse-sized building she
purchased in 2023, making her the first Black woman ever to buy an entire block
on the Baltimore waterfront. That breakthrough, she said, has made her a magnet
for others.
“When young people visit our offices [on field trips], they want to know what
it’s like to be a property owner,” she said. “When they leave, they do so having met
someone who looks like them, from a city they live in, and who’s doing the thing
that they didn’t know someone who looks like them could do. They can see themselves in me.”
— Mike Klingaman
20 | 2025 | WOMEN TO WATCH
Peggy Norton-Rosko oversees more than 9,300 health care workers at 13 hospitals as chief nurse executive for the University of
Maryland Medical System. Eighteen months into the job, her managerial acumen has the program purring as she crafts new strategies
for age-old challenges such as nurse retention, burnout, and both
violence and empowerment in the workplace.
“We could muddle along forever with the same things we’ve
always done, and get good results,” said Norton-Rosko. “But, sometimes, it’s best to break out and to push the boundaries.”
Last year, UMMS launched a cutting-edge program called NEST
(Neonatal Outcomes Impacted by Escalation Safety Telemetry), in
which highly skilled nurses track birthing procedures at each of
its hospitals from a remote fetal monitoring center in Linthicum.
Norton-Rosko said the project and others in the works are
empowering for nurses in a profession where women still constitute 88% of the workforce.
With a postgraduate degree from Loyola University of Chicago,
she flexed her leadership muscle while partnering for years with
cardiovascular specialists.
“The time I spent working directly with heart surgeons helped
me understand health care from a broader perspective, and not just
through a nursing lens,” she said. “Nurses have to understand the
importance of being able to influence their own practicing environment. We need to allow them to speak up, be heard and help
implement solutions.”
— Mike Klingaman
