Board of Directors
Kelly Close
Founder, The diaTribe Foundation and co-Founder, dQ&A
Founder and President, Close Concerns
Kelly Close has led Close Concerns since 2002, a healthcare information firm focused on diabetes and obesity. Each year Kelly and her colleagues attend nearly 50 scientific, regulatory, and advocacy gatherings in the US and around the world, focused in these areas; they read the key medical literature in the field and write regularly about 50+ public companies and dozens of private companies and nonprofit organizations in the field. She also leads Close Concerns’ W!LD initiative that is focused on emerging and established women leaders and their committed allies. Kelly is also the founder of The diaTribe Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of people living with diabetes and prediabetes and advocating for action. From 2006 to 2021, she served as editor-in-chief at diaTribe.org, the organization’s free website focused on making people with diabetes healthier, happier, and more hopeful. diaTribe mailers are sent weekly to over 600,000 people with diabetes and their families. Kelly graduated from Amherst College and Harvard Business School and lives in San Francisco with her husband and three children. Kelly's passion for diabetes comes from her extensive professional work as well as her personal experience living with diabetes for over 35 years.
Jim Carroll
Chief Executive Officer
Jim comes to The diaTribe Foundation after seven years as the Vice President of Finance and Administration at Common Sense Media and 6 years as the Managing Director of Equality California where he led the team to successfully pass over 70 pieces of legislation to achieve legal equality for LGBT Californians. He also worked at an environmental health organization called The Breast Cancer Fund and at the National office of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Jim graduated from the University of Florida and lives with his husband, Scott, and his yellow labrador retriever, Atlas, in San Francisco.
Alan Moses, MD
Board Chair
Dr. Alan Moses is an independent consultant for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector. Trained in internal medicine and endocrinology, he spent the early part of his academic career at Harvard doing bench and clinical research and clinical care. Dr. Moses co-founded and directed the Clinical Investigator Training Program at Beth Israel Deaconess-Harvard Medical School-MIT. From 1998 to 2004, Dr. Moses served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the Joslin Diabetes Center with specific responsibility for the Joslin Clinic. He joined Novo Nordisk in 2004. During his 14 years at Novo Nordisk, Dr. Moses served in multiple roles beginning as Associate Vice President of Medical Affairs in the US and rising to the position of Senior Vice President and Global Chief Medical Officer working in Copenhagen. Dr. Moses earned his MD from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, worked for three years at the National Institutes of Health, completed his clinical endocrine/diabetes training at Tufts New England Medical Center, and studied Health Care Strategy at Harvard Business School. He retired from Novo Nordisk in June 2018.
Jeff Halpern
Jeff Halpern brings to The diaTribe Foundation a combination of strategic business skills, consumer marketing acumen and experience in the diabetes device industry. He is currently Senior Director of Connected Systems for Abbott Diabetes Care where he is responsible for global strategy and commercialization of insulin pen and insulin pump partnerships and for the strategy and commercialization of connected insulin pen products. Prior to joining Abbott, Jeff spent a combined 9 years at The Clorox Company in brand management for businesses including Glad Food Storage and Clorox Cleaning Products. Since 1986, Jeff has held a variety of marketing and finance positions with major consulting, technology and consumer packaged goods companies including TheraSense, Wattage Monitor, Archway-Mother’s Cookie Companies, Swinglab LLC, Pacific Bell Mobile Services (aka AT&T Wireless), The Haagen-Dazs Company, and Bain & Company. Jeff received his A.B. from Brown University and his M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He has Type 1 diabetes.
Orville Kolterman, MD
Dr. Kolterman was most recently Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer of Amylin Pharmaceuticals and since 1989 has been Adjunct Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego. He previously served as Senior Vice President, Research and Development from June 2008 to June 2010. He served as Senior Vice President, Development from March 2008 to May 2008. He also served as Senior Vice President, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs from August 2005 to March 2008, Senior Vice President, Clinical Affairs from February 1997 to August 2005, Vice President, Medical Affairs from 1993 to 1997, and Director, Medical Affairs from 1992 to 1993. From 1983 to 1992, he was Program Director of the General Clinical Research Center and Medical Director of the Diabetes Center at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. He was a member of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial Study Group and presently serves as a member of the Epidemiology of Diabetes Intervention and Complications Study. He is also a past-president of the California Affiliate of the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Kolterman received his M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Marjorie Sennett
Marjorie Sennett’s strategic business skills in the diabetes industry stem from her roles as an operating executive and an institutional investor. As the CFO of Amylin Pharmaceuticals for nine years, she raised $400 million enabling the company’s early development of three novel drugs for diabetes. As a former Managing Director of Farallon Capital, she managed a $700 million portfolio of investments in biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic companies, including several in the diabetes industry. She understands the complexities of the diabetes ecosystem, the operational challenges of building entrepreneurial companies, and the return expectations of institutional investors. Since 2021, she has served on the Board of Directors and is Chair of the Audit Committee of Cognex Corporation, a publicly traded, leading innovator of machine vision technology. Since 2017, she has served on the Board of Directors of The diaTribe Foundation and is Chair of its Audit Committee. During 2014-2018, she served as a member of the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of QuinStreet, a publicly-traded performance marketing technology company. Ms. Sennett earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Biology and English from Vanderbilt University.
Roberta Herman, MD
Dr. Herman is originally from Montreal, Canada, where she trained as an Internist and Epidemiologist at McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital. After spending 12 years in practice and serving as Chief of Internal Medicine at Harvard Community Health Plan’s Cambridge Center, Dr. Herman went on to become the Chief Medical Officer and then Chief Operating Officer for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care , one of New England’s largest non-profit managed health care organizations, providing care and coverage to more than one million members throughout Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire (now Point 32). During her tenure, HPHC became the #1 Health Plan in the US according to NCQA, a position it maintained for more than a decade.
Dr. Herman spent 4 years as a healthcare consultant in Chicago based Navigant (now Guidewell) where she co-led their Healthcare Value Transformation Practice. She returned to Massachusetts to assume the role of Executive Director of the Group Insurance Commission (GIC) under the Baker Administration; this quasi-independent 2B+ agency procures and administers health insurance and other benefits for more than 450,000 employees and retirees of the Commonwealth, and their dependents. During that time, Dr. Herman was also recruited to the Board of Trustees of the Joslin Diabetes Center and was hired as the Center’s CEO and President in January 2020. As of November, 2021, the Center has affiliated with BILH. Dr. Herman has been a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical School, held hospital appointments at Mount Auburn Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and been a guest lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Tom Vitale
Tom Vitale is currently a Senior Counsel and was for more than 30 years a Partner in the corporate practice of Mayer Brown LLP, a leading international law firm. Tom has extensive experience advising boards of directors and their committees on issues of corporate governance, legal and regulatory compliance, sensitive internal matters, ethical and policy considerations, and strategic transactions. Tom’s transactional practice focuses on acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, shareholder arrangements, and private equity investments across many industries and often with significant cross-border elements.
During his career, Tom also held several management positions at Mayer Brown, including co-leader of the firm’s corporate practice and managing partner of the firm’s New York office. Tom has served as a director of public, private, and co-operative and not-for-profit entities. Tom is a graduate of Princeton University and Stanford Law School.