Dana Ball is the CEO of Unitio, Inc., and the executive director and cofounder of T1D Exchange. He has been a patient advocate for 30 years and has spent more than a decade as a nonprofit executive driving innovative programs in type 1 diabetes (T1D).

As CEO of Unitio, Ball has built an organization dedicated to creating faster paths to improved outcomes for those battling disease. Unitio offers an innovative model centered on a proprietary real-world research platform that unites those affected with disease to those dedicated to advancing better care and treatments.

As executive director of T1D Exchange, Ball has built an organization that fulfills the Unitio vision for a centralized, patient-centric resource that drives faster, more informed research. In just five years, he has established T1D Exchange as a widely recognized, highly credible resource in the T1D medical and research community globally. As the first program of Unitio, T1D Exchange has proved to accelerate research and improve outcomes in type 1 diabetes. Today, Unitio also includes the community of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as one of its flagship programs.

Before becoming CEO and founder of Unitio and executive director of T1D Exchange, Ball served as program director for the T1D program at the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, where he cofounded T1D Exchange. He also developed long-term strategies and initiatives that funded novel approaches in T1D research, technology, systems and outreach. Prior to that, Ball served as executive director of the Iacocca Foundation, overseeing all aspects of the family’s philanthropic activities, including development of a multimillion-dollar fund-raising campaign to advance the field of beta cell regeneration. Programs at the Iacocca Foundation included initiatives supporting research and development to advance understanding of T1D in humans and support new clinical interventions.