Executive Team

Charles D. “Chuck” Henderson is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Diabetes Association® (ADA).

Chuck joined the ADA in January 2020 after spending 24-plus years in for-profit sectors and volunteering in the non-profit sector. Philanthropy and Sales/Fundraising are threaded through the fabric of his DNA. Chuck comes to the ADA from Champion Life Safety Solutions where he was CEO and President. Before that, he was a Field Sales Executive running multi-billion-dollar territories across the country for Dell Healthcare, Common ground Marketing (including executing special events in the field), and Viacom. His professional skill set and success, coupled with his passion and desire to give back, make this a perfect time to lead a non-profit organization. He is passionate about spending the balance of his career in a space that will make a significant impact on the lives of millions across the country.

Chuck is skilled in building trusted and collegial working relationships, relationship selling/fundraising, driving productivity, leading, and supporting change-management initiatives. He has deep experience developing best-of-breed, solution-selling leaders who think as strategic business partners, with a culture of winning as a team and over-delivering results.

A native Texan, Chuck has a strong commitment to his family, community, and church. An avid golfer, Chuck is also involved with his alma mater, Texas A&M where he serves on boards and leverages his professional skills to raise money for the school in different capacities. When he is not working on fundraising for A&M causes, he is working on raising capital funds for his church, where he serves on the Board of Trustees. Chuck is married to his beautiful wife Courtney, and together they have a bright teenage daughter, Charlie.

Charlotte is Chief Operating Officer for the American Diabetes Association. Since 1940, the ADA has been committed to its mission to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. 

Charlotte is responsible for driving strategic initiatives, managing financial resources, and ensuring operational efficiency and effectiveness of ADA's programs and services. The divisions reporting into Charlotte include Procurement & Administrative Services, Convention Operations, Data Analytics, Financial Services, Human Resources, Information Technology & Services, Legal & Compliance, and Operations.

Charlotte first joined the ADA in 1990 and is a seasoned leader with decades of experience in both not-for-profit and public accounting. She has led several financial and operating teams through business process redesigns, system implementations, strategic business planning and execution, resource recruitment and allocation, budgeting, and designing KPI measurements.

Prior to joining the American Diabetes Association, Charlotte was a staff accountant at Ronald K. King, CPA, where she was responsible for compilation and tax preparation for several individuals, partnerships and corporations. Additionally, she was part of the audit assurance team. 

Charlotte holds a degree in Accounting from the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming. She is also a Certified Public Accountant.

Robert A. Gabbay, MD, PhD, FACP is Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. Throughout his vibrant career he has had many accomplishments as a basic science researcher, developer of patient communication tools, creator of the first broad scale diabetes registry, designer of care management training programs, and leader of one of the largest primary care transformation efforts in the US around the Patient Centered Medical Home.

The reach of his work has been recognized through leadership roles in national and international arenas. Dr. Gabbay has served as visiting professor, keynote speaker, and on organizing committees for global meetings of the ADA, International Diabetes Federation, Endocrine Society, and the Diabetes Technology Society. Along with an extensive peer reviewed publication record, he has appeared in and is frequently quoted in the popular press including the New York Times, CNN, Oprah, the Washington Post, and NPR.

At the ADA, Dr. Gabbay has led many transformational initiatives including the establishment of the Primary Care Council (comprised of the leading primary care organizations in the US) and the development of a deeper focus on primary care at the ADA, the reinvigoration of the Standards of Care, the expansion of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) through a multi-year $12.5 million CDC initiative, the launch of the Institute of Learning (IOL), establishment of the Leapfrog initiative to recognize quality care hospital systems for people with diabetes, and leading the association with innovation at the ADA Scientific Sessions and with the ADA’s Innovation Challenge.  

Dr. Gabbay has transformed the Science & Health Care division at the ADA widening the breadth of skills and expertise of the team to include multiple health care professionals and researchers.

Throughout his career, Dr. Gabbay has received funding from the National Institute of Health Diabetes, Digestive and Kidneys Diseases (NIDDK), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Cener for Disease Control, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation for his care transformation work.

Before his time at the ADA, Dr. Gabbay served as the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President at Joslin Diabetes Center, and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. At Joslin, he oversaw the clinical care for over 25,000 patients, as well as the education and care programs Joslin delivers nationally and internationally.

Dr. Gabbay completed his B.Sc. Degree at McGill University and his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin where he published on mechanisms of insulin signaling. He received his medical degree from the State University of New York at Brooklyn School of Medicine with a residency in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital-Cornell and a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at a joint Joslin-Beth Israel Deaconess-Brigham and Women’s Hospital program at Harvard. Dr. Gabbay was a visiting scientist at MIT and a Professor of Medicine at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, as well as the founding director of the Penn State Institute of Diabetes and Obesity before his tenure at Joslin.
 

Elle Uh brings over 15 years of experience in strategy and organizational transformation to enable efficient and effective business and strategic operations. Prior to joining the ADA, she was a partner at Korn Ferry where she worked with various Fortune 500 C-suite executives to align strategy with organizational structures to improve ways of working, mature talent management capabilities, and enable effective processes that transform the employee experience. Previously, Elle was at Deloitte Consulting where she advised various governmental agencies in the health care space, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on creating new operating and organizational structures, establishing regulatory processes, and improving accountability for performance across the organization. 

Elle has also partnered with the nation’s largest non-profit affordable housing organization to create strategic goal alignment and monitor and evaluate social service outcomes for at-risk communities. Elle holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of Hawaii, a Master of Arts in cross cultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Master of Arts in organizational behavior and evaluation from Claremont Graduate University. Elle resides in Darnestown, Maryland with her husband and three shih tzu puppies.

Lisa Murdock is the Chief Advocacy Officer for the American Diabetes Association. With more than 30 years of government affairs experience, Lisa leads the ADA’s advocacy efforts to ensure people with diabetes have access to adequate and affordable health care, insulin and other medications, healthy food and other prevention programs, and that students with diabetes have medically safe and equal access to education.

Brandi joined the ADA in 2022 after more than 20 years as a nonprofit leader. Brandi’s responsibilities will include executing on the strategic vision established by the CEO and executive team, continuing to build our infrastructure, and helping to foster a culture of excellence and accountability on the Development and PMO delivery teams. Her operational experience will be a tremendous asset to the organization.  
 
Prior to joining the ADA, Brandi served as an associate executive vice president for the American Heart Association (AHA). During her career at the AHA, Brandi held a variety of operational and leadership roles in national and regional development programs. Brandi is a known team-builder and excels in change management.
 
She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and resides in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, Robert, and their two daughters, Anna Cate and Emma Claire. 

Simone Grapini-Goodman is a marketing executive with a deep, versatile background—from Fortune 10 and academia to nonprofit and early-stage organizations. Simone has devoted her career to improving the health of Americans through access to quality health care at the health care services/delivery level while at Optum (a pharmacy benefit manager and health care provider), and at the insurance benefits level with United Healthcare’s Medicaid business. She also served as vice president of Academic Strategic Partnerships while at Optum to curate the next generation of health care leaders and accelerate the translation of academic applied research to new products. 

Simone has also consulted for nonprofit causes, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Discovery Initiative, and at the University and Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP) professional association. In her most recent role prior to the American Diabetes Association, Simone served as chief marketing officer for DiRx (direct+rx), an early-stage digital pharmacy platform focused on generic medication affordability and accessibility. Having joined at seed stage as the fifth employee, she launched the brand nationally and built the marketing and communications ecosystem and go-to-market strategy. 

Simone has her MBA from the University of Maryland and an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. She has studied in France and Ireland, and has completed professional development courses at Yale, Duke, and Wharton. Simone lives with her husband, two daughters, and (always) a dog in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.