Director of Digital Marketing and Communication, Medtronic Diabetes

Amanda Sheldon has more than 15 years of experience as public relations and marketing communications strategist for healthcare and technology businesses. She joined Medtronic Diabetes in January of 2010, where she oversees digital marketing, e-commerce, social media and online community development as well as public relations.

Prior to joining Medtronic, Amanda served as a Senior Vice President of Porter Novelli, where she managed a $1.5 million client portfolio as senior counselor and relationship manager for the medical devices and health information technology practices. She’s also held marketing and public relations leadership positions at Paracel, Inc., a subsidiary of Celera Genomics.

Amanda holds a BA in English Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. Outside of work, Amanda volunteers for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, helps lead a meditation group.

Manny Hernandez is a Venezuelan-born nonprofit leader, a social media author, and a passionate hispanic diabetes advocate and key opinion leader who has lived with LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) since 2002. In 1994, he completed his undergraduate studies in Electrical Engineering in Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas. In 1996 he obtained his Masters degree from Cornell University. Before DHF, he worked with Procter & Gamble, Quepasa.com, Earth911, Pets911, Full Sail University and Ning. He wrote “Ning for Dummies,” (April 2009) and collaborated in other books on social media and health 2.0. He is a fully bilingual (Spanish/English), fluent in French and conversational in Italian and German.

In 2007, he started TuDiabetes.org and EsTuDiabetes.org along with his wife, Andreina Davila. In 2008 they co-founded Diabetes Hands Foundation and served as Chairman of the board between 2008 and 2012, growing the board from 5 members to 14, to support the organization’s growth.