Catherine Barr Windels is a writer and policy communications advisor with over four decades experience in government and corporate public affairs work. She worked for 22 years at Pfizer Inc., retiring in 2009 as Senior Director for Worldwide Policy Mobilization, a post in which she served as Pfizer’s ambassador to public policy think tanks around the world. She also created and managed “Pfizer Forum,” a global advertorial program that appeared in publications including The Economist and The Financial Times. Before joining Pfizer in 1987, Cathy was an appointee in the Reagan Administration in positions including that of Acting and Associate Director of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, and Director of the Office of Media and Special Programs at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
She serves on the Boards of Trustees of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation (Washington, D.C.) and of the American Studies Center (Arlington, VA), and also on the Board of Regents of the Fund for American Studies (Washington, D.C.). She has spoken on health care and policy issues on numerous occasions, including lectures at the Harvard School of Public Health and the École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Montreal. A graduate of Villanova University, she was married to the late Paul Windels III and is the mother of two.