Donna Libretti Cooke, JD Director, Contracting & Budgeting, Bayer Donna’s career path is quite varied and not typical for the ordinary road to the pharmaceutical industry. Her experience spans from a former practicing attorney, professional legal and regulatory conference development, public policy, and public affairs work. These combined experiences pivoted Donna into her most experienced role in Clinical Operations, with a focus on clinical site contracting, budgeting and payments. Donna leads a global Contracting and Budgeting team for Bayer, building Fair Market Value site budgets, collaborating with study teams and providing training to the country organizations around the world. She also provides guidance and support on contracting and budgeting best practices for the local country organizations. Additionally, Donna is project lead for Kits4Life, a non-profit platform to repurpose lab kits and bulk medical supplies for humanitarian aid, and Chairs the Advisory Council’s Site/Pharma On-Boarding Workstream for Kits4Life. Kits4Life is a key sustainability initiative and is built into the normal course of conducting clinical trials at Bayer. This dovetails into Donna’s role as a Sustainability Champion, where Donna ignites engagement from colleagues on how they can contribute to Bayer’s sustainability efforts. Donna also leads a CDA initiative and provides support for several other major clin ops projects, such as implementation of automated payments; supporting roll-out of a new Study Start Up tool; and consultation on diversity, site sustainability and decentralized clinical trials. Prior to converting to Bayer, Donna was an Associate Director for PRA Health Sciences and embedded at Bayer as the U.S. Contracts Manager. Donna grew and managed a U.S. team of over 20 clinical contract specialists and associates. She managed the contracts team and operational aspects of clinical contracts, budget negotiations, to those thorny site payment issues. Donna is also a Patient Educator with Pathways Women’s Cancer Teaching Project and a member of their Advisory Council. Her Patient Educator role entails speaking on panels or 1:1 interviews with medical students and residents about her experience as a triple-negative breast cancer survivor. They are unique opportunities for healthcare professionals to learn about patients’ personal experiences through educational dialogue in a less formal setting. Donna earned her JD degree at The Washington College of Law, The American University, and B.S. in Political Science at Douglass College, Rutgers University. Donna’s five-year residency in Rome, Italy spurred her love for travel and historical adventures. She is married with two daughters and now resides in Florida. But her heart remains in bella Roma!