Novelli began his career at Unilever, marketing consumer products, before joining the New York ad agency Wells, Rich, Greene, and then the Peace Corps in 1970.
[8] Novelli left CARE in 1995 to found the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a program to discourage youth tobacco smoking in the U.S., with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and partnerships with the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and other public health organizations.
He took a key role in passage of the Older Americans Act[11] and was a leader of the "Divided We Fail" coalition, which lobbied the Obama administration for health care reform.
In 2009 Novelli left AARP to cofound the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) with Tom Koutsoumpas.
C-TAC is a national organization dedicated to reforming advanced illness and end of life care by empowering consumers, changing the healthcare delivery system, improving public policies, and enhancing provider capacity.
He co-chairs the Culture & Inclusiveness Action Collaborative of the National Academy of Medicine and served on NAM committees on The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health and Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life.
[19] Novelli was co-editor of A Roadmap for Success: Transforming Advanced Illness Care in America (with Boe Workman and Tom Koutsoumpas, C-TAC, 2015).