Donna has extensive experience in the chemical and petroleum industries. She began supporting sustainability and the evolving issues of corporate citizenship, environmental disclosures, emissions reduction targets, metrics and annual reporting 14 years ago. In addition to this, she has also worked to address human rights supply chain issues, including conflict minerals, forced labor, sustainability platforms, ESG issues, UN SDGs and circular economy.

Donna also has experience in advising on life cycle assessments, evaluating new sustainable product and joint venture opportunities, as well as sustainability marketing claims. She helped develop advocacy approaches, strategies for NGO engagement and participation in sustainability-focused activist groups.

As an executive legal counsel, Donna was the recognized legal expert on product stewardship in the company. She supported “Fortune 500” business lines on all aspects of product stewardship, including country product restrictions, customer and brand owner deselection bans and strategies to address the complex and rapidly changing regulatory landscape. Her work enabled global sales of specialty and commodity chemicals into a broad range of consumer-focused end applications. Some of which included medical, pharmaceuticals, food, food packaging and agricultural applications.

After graduating with a Master’s in Environmental Health, Donna spent her early career in corporate and plant assignments as an industrial hygienist (C.I.H.) with Gulf Oil before transitioning her career to ARCO, where she served as the refinery-based Safety Supervisor. Donna’s first role at ExxonMobil was as a chemical plant Environmental Coordinator. There, she was responsible for handling air, water and waste permitting.

After completing her law degree, Donna served as managing counsel on complex environmental and chemical injury lawsuits for ExxonMobil. Following this role, she became a chemical company business lawyer for transactional work that included joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and divestures. Donna was then assigned to support chemical and refinery operations on health and safety issues, process safety, emergency response, remediation, and community outreach.