Dona Bertarelli
Dona Bertarelli (born 1968) is an Italian businesswoman. She is co-president of the Bertarelli Foundation. She is also a competitive sailor; she won the 2010 Bol d’Or Mirabaud.
Childhood and education
Bertarelli was born in Rome in 1968. She is the daughter of . She and her brother Ernesto inherited Serono, one of the largest biotechnology companies in the world. Serono was founded in 1906 in Rome and was the building block of the family’s wealth.
The Bertarelli family moved to Switzerland in 1973.
Bertarelli has a BSc from Boston University’s College of Communications.
Business
Bertarelli was active in Serono, the family business, and from 1992 to 1997 was Executive Director, Public and Professional Affairs, where she established a Serono Symposia and the Serono Foundation. The company was sold to Merck KGaA at the beginning of 2007.
The 5 star Grand Hôtel Park in Gstaad was the first Grand Hotel in the Alpine resort. In 2003 Bertarelli took it over and in 2010 efurbished it.
In 2001 she purchased the Country Club Geneva, a sports and leisure club in the outskirts of the city of Geneva.
Philanthropy
After her father, Fabio Bertarelli, died, Bertarelli and her brother, founded in 1999 the Bertarelli Foundation to promote the sharing and development of scientific, social and economic knowledge in the field of infertility. For ten years, Bertarelli was Chairman of the Foundation, whose medical education and work programme reduced by over 50% multiple pregnancies due to in-vitro fertilization. In 2007, these activities were taken over by the Lausanne-based Fondation FABER in Switzerland.
The Bertarelli Foundation has reoriented its activities to focus on several areas, namely the life sciences, education, the protection of the world’s oceans and sports.
Projects recently supported by the Bertarelli Foundation include the Centre of Neuroprostheses at the EPFL in Lausanne; a partnership with the British government to create the Chagos Marine Reserve, the largest ocean reserve in the world, in the Indian Ocean; a joint neurosciences research and education programme between Harvard Medical School and the EPFL; the Swiss Sailing Grants, attributed in partnership with the Swiss Sailing Federation; and the construction of the Henna Pre-School in South Africa.
Sailing
Bertarelli is a passionate sailor and since 2007 has raced with her team in the monotype multihull regattas on the Lake Léman with her Décision 35 catamaran, Ladycat. Bertarelli and her team won the Bol d’Or Mirabaud in 2010. Bertarelli was the first helmswoman to win this race since its inception in 1939.
References
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dona_Bertarelli
