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