Lisette Cooper

Lisette Cooper is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Athena Capital Advisors, an investment advisory firm serving private clients, foundations, and endowments.   Lisette heads the Investment Committee and has led Athena to be consistently ranked in the top wealth management firms in the country. She has appeared on television and radio including CNBC, FOX, and Bloomberg and is quoted in the Wall Street Journal and other financial publications.

Lisette earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University and holds a Bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.  She holds the CFA designation. After an early career as a Vice President and Senior Strategist at Merrill Lynch, she founded Athena in 1993 to bring investment techniques of the largest institutional investors to a wide range of institutional and private client investors.

Dr. Cooper is a dedicated meditation practitioner and a teacher in the Dharma Ocean lineage of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She is former Chairman of the Board for the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. There, she was dedicated to providing a safe and sacred environment for healing, growth and transformation.  Dr. Cooper  is a founding board member of the Boston Youth Sanctuary.  She is committed to social justice and shares Garrison’s passion for extending the benefits of contemplative practice into the major institutions of society, such as the educational and social services systems.

Dr. Cooper’s  life work merges her financial expertise with a spiritual grounding to work toward both better business practices and social good. She has helped establish Athena as a leader in the field of socially responsible and impact investing as a member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). She is lead author of  Social Finance and the Postmodern Portfolio: Theory & Practice, Journal of Wealth Management (Spring 2016).