In this episode of BRight Minds in Healthcare Delivery, Donna Cooper joins host Eric Tower for a conversation about her career and how her prior experience has influenced her current role as an operating partner. Donna explains the role of an operating partner at a private equity firm, describes how the role of an operating partner differs from the executive team overseeing a portfolio company, and talks about her approach to working with a new portfolio company.

Donna, an operating partner at Varsity Healthcare Partners, has more than 20 years of executive healthcare operations and finance experience. She most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of Duly Health and Care (formerly known as DuPage Medical Group). While at Duly, Ms. Cooper was responsible for clinical operations including multi-specialty service lines, ASCs, a contact center, and ancillary services. Ms. Cooper took on the role of Incident Commander during the COVID-19 crisis and led the group’s development and execution of the treatment, testing, safety, and vaccination strategy. She has additional experience working for Advocate Medical Group, Advocate Dreyer Medical Clinic, Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa, John Deere Health Care, and Arthur Andersen.