Our Team
We help hyper-growth companies develop their talent strategies and source the right executives to see those strategies through.
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Co-Founder & Senior Partner
Austin Cooke
With over 25 years of experience building global, hyper-growth organizations, Austin Cooke is a premiere HR leader.
Austin has pioneered innovative talent programs, and his passion and expertise lies in building human resources infrastructures from the ground up. Under his mentorship, many HR alumni have gone on to hold executive leadership roles at prestigious companies.
Valued as a C-level partner, global people strategist and executive coach, Austin’s experience includes designing HR and Talent strategies, defining culture and employment branding, developing world-class HR teams and recruiting top talent.
Prior to co-founding Cooke & White Advisors, Austin was instrumental in scaling both Sapient and Vistaprint’s workforces to thousands of people worldwide, most recently, as an HR leader for Vistaprint.
As a thought leader on talent and leadership, Austin has been featured in “The Boston Globe,” “Forbes” magazine and ABC News. He recently served as an advisor to Gild.com and was an advisor to The Professional Aptitude Council, The Human Capital Institute and Monster.com.
Austin earned a B.S. degree from West Chester University of Pennsylvania and resides in North Carolina.
Contact
austin@cookeandwhite.com
704-817-7549
Co-Founder & Senior Partner
Michael White
Michael White is a talent acquisition innovator. After more than 20 years as a recruitment executive at globally recognized, multibillion-dollar organizations, Michael has developed a reputation for implementing visionary talent acquisition initiatives that align recruitment practices with strategic business goals. His passionate professionalism has enabled international, hyper-growth organizations to scale dramatically, leading to several billion-dollar acquisitions by heavyweights like Oracle and IBM.
Michael’s talent for strategic transformation has been a defining feature of his career. Prior to co-founding Cooke & White Advisors, Michael spearheaded key talent acquisition initiatives for Iron Mountain, Endeca Technologies, Sapient and Rational Software. In particular, his work led to a 30% increase in applicants and a 25% increase in recruiter productivity at Iron Mountain while he was their Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition.
Michael sat on the advisory board for Monster.com and has presented at the MIT Executive Forum, educating early stage startup CEOs on recruitment best practices.
He is a graduate of New Hampshire College and resides near Charlotte, NC.
Contact
mwhite@cookeandwhite.com
704-817-7468
Partner
Patricia Lopez
Patricia Lopez is an executive search superstar. She brings over a decade of expertise to recruiting directors, VPs, and C-level executives for various industries, including software, professional services, hospitality/tourism and retail.
Prior to joining Cooke and White Advisors, Patricia worked with McIntyre Company, Fenwick Partners, Heidrick and Struggles, and Sapient. She’s helped hyper-growth companies improve and expand their executive recruiting functions. She even built an executive search function within Sapient when executive searches were mostly outsourced.
Patricia brings her gregarious personality, collaborative mindset and exceptional work ethic to every client and search she undertakes. She is an effective communicator and is well-known for getting things done.
Patricia earned her B.A. in journalism from Indiana University and resides in Cincinnati, OH.
When not searching for top talent, Patricia enjoys travel, reading and skiing as well as raising her family, which remains a work in progress.
Contact
patricia@cookeandwhite.com
513-503-4147
PARTNER
Charles Telep
Charles Telep is a seasoned Talent Acquisition leader and HR practitioner with over 15 years of experience recruiting C-suite and senior-level executives across multiple “growth" industries. He has tremendous expertise in building recruiting teams, systems, and operations.
Prior to joining Cooke & White Advisors, he led recruiting at LogMeIn, which grew from 300 people to more than 3,000 via organic growth and M&A. He has also been instrumental in building talent teams at Indigo, Wayfair, athenahealth, and Forrester Research.
Charles brings his positive and energetic attitude to every endeavor. He works hard to ensure that both organizations and executives make the right mutual decision to work together so that both parties can benefit.
Charles earned his B.A. degree from Calvin College and lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts with his wife and two boys.
Contact
ctelep@cookeandwhite.com
616-822-1322
senior consultant
Marisca Kooij
Marisca Kooij loves to search for top talent and create connections between great leaders and clients. The fact that she can truly bring her passion to work, makes Cooke & White Advisors the perfect place for her.
Prior to joining, Marisca was a global Talent Acquisition and Executive Recruiting leader in both large companies and scale-ups, mostly in technology and e-commerce. She has led Vistaprint, Red Hat and Confluent through times of change, expansion and hyper growth, developed and established agile talent acquisition strategies and managed regional teams in EMEA, APAC and the Americas.
Her always positive, problem solving mindset and customer focus make her an excellent Executive Search partner.
Marisca earned her B.A. in Public Relations and Tourism from the Breda University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands) and she lives just outside of Boston with her husband and dog.
Whenever she has a chance to, Marisca likes to travel the world, explore the outdoors and enjoy quality time with family and friends.
Contact
mkooij@cookeandwhite.com
617-768-7861
senior Consultant
Chelsea Harris
Chelsea Harris is an experienced talent acquisition and people operations professional with expertise recruiting for sales, HR and operations leaders for hypergrowth companies across various industries.
Prior to joining Cooke and White Advisors, Chelsea was a recruiting leader at Tangent Executive Search, finding top talent in sales, marketing and product across a variety of industries and strategically drove significant business and team growth. Her previous experience at Red Ventures included roles across talent acquisition, talent management and Chief of Staff to the CEO & founder.
Chelsea brings enthusiasm, determination and energy to her work and is passionate about matching great talent with great organizations.
Chelsea earned her B.S. in Psychology and MBA from Mount St. Mary’s University and lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband and son. She is a lifelong tennis player.
Contact
charris@cookeandwhite.com
484-459-6551
executive assistant
Amy Sosa
Amy Sosa is a seasoned Executive Assistant with over 15 years of experience in administrative, marketing, and customer service roles. She has experience across a variety of industries, including sign and graphics, education, and recruiting.
At Cooke and White Advisors, she excels in providing high-level administrative support to the co-founders and practice partners, including calendar management, document creation, and website support. She also acts as a coordinator, ensuring seamless logistics for C-suite candidate interviews, and delivering a white-glove experience for high-level executives.
Amy earned her B.S.B.A. in Marketing from Appalachian State University and is bilingual in Spanish. She is an amateur photographer and loves to travel.
Contact
amy@cookeandwhite.com
704-458-6690