Straight talk with...Jonathan Quick. Interview by Roxanne Khamsi

In April 2012, an e-mail announcing the impending closure of the Global Health Council following the cancellation of its annual conference sent shockwaves through its community of 325 organizational members spanning 39 countries. For 40 years, the Alexandria, Virginia-based nonprofit had acted as an umbrella organization for stakeholders that include some of the world's most prominent medical institutions and drug companies. As the June 2012 closure of the GHC approached, several members stepped in to rescue the operation, including Jonathan Quick, a family physician and CEO of Management Sciences for Health, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based outfit that works to strengthen health systems and infrastructure around the globe. In January, a new GHC board was elected, with Quick at the helm. In the ensuing months the board members have built the organization back up-albeit as a leaner and more targeted operation. This past summer, they launched a revamped website (www.globalhealth.org) and are looking ahead to convening GHC members at the UN General Assembly on 18 September in New York, where the discussion of Millennium Development Goals will take place. As Nature Medicine went to press, the relaunched GHC was in the midst of recruiting for its first staff position, executive director. Roxanne Khamsi spoke with Quick about the health of the organization.