Kelly Close, Founder, The diaTribe Foundation

Kelly L. Close is the founder and Chair of the Board of The diaTribe Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of people living with diabetes and prediabetes, and advocating for action. Since 2006, she has been the Editor-in-Chief of diaTribe, our free website focused on making people with diabetes healthier and happier and advocating for action. Since 2002, she has also run Close Concerns, a healthcare information firm exclusively focused on diabetes and obesity. Each year Kelly and her colleagues attend over 50 scientific, regulatory, and economic conferences around the world, focused on diabetes and obesity; they read the key medical literature in the field and write regularly about 50-plus private and public companies and nonprofit organizations. Kelly's passion for diabetes comes from her extensive professional work as well as her personal experience as a type 1 patient for nearly 30 years.

Prior to starting Close Concerns, Kelly was an analyst in the financial sector, writing about medical technology companies, and she also worked at McKinsey & Company, where a majority of her work was focused on healthcare. Kelly is recognized as an expert on diabetes and obesity markets, and she is a frequent speaker on the public health implications of diabetes and obesity. A longtime diabetes patient advocate, Kelly was previously on the Board of Directors of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, the Behavioral Diabetes Institute, and the Executive Board of the San Francisco Bay Area JDRF. Kelly is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Business School. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and three children.

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 Brand, Strategy and Communications for Abbott Diabetes Care where he is responsible for brand strategy, financial planning, marketing plan development, direct to consumer marketing, strategic partnerships, creative services, and new product commercialization for the US market. 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.

Dr. Orville Kolterman

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.

Dr. Alan Moses

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.

Marjorie Sennett