Phil Cooper is a Senior Advisor of Pilot Growth Equity and is based in Boston. Phil has 30 years of experience in investment management and private equity as an entrepreneur, principal investor, fund investor, and secondary investor. He actively serves on boards and investment committees, and as a Special General Partner of private equity funds. He advises investment firms and fiduciary Investors on investment policy, governance, strategy and tactics including asset allocation, risk management and alternative investments.
Phil is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management; a member of the MIT Sloan School Finance Advisory Committee. Phil is the co-holder of several US Patents in investment technology. In the past, he has founded and also been a co-founder of several high tech and IT/healthcare companies.
In 1996 Phil conceived, founded, and led the Goldman Sachs Private Equity Group to over $11 billion in assets and international prominence. While at Goldman Sachs, he served on the Goldman Sachs Asset Management Risk Committee, Operating Committee, and Technology Committee. He retired as a Goldman Sachs Partner in 2004.
He is currently the Co-Founder of Digital Cognition Technologies, Inc., an MIT spin-out with novel technology to detect cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease before symptoms manifest; Nautical Wines LLC, which imports fine wines into China; and Natural Ships Inc., which is developing a new design for low pollution efficient natural gas powered cargo ships.
Phil is a Special Advisor to the WAVE private equity fund, a growth investor in emerging industrial companies; on the Advisory Board of RCP Advisors, a major private equity firm in Fund of Funds, Secondary and Co-Investing; President of Cambridge Concentus Orchestra; a Board member of Boston Baroque Orchestra; and a member of the Children’s Hospital (Boston) Endowment Investment Committee. Phil is also the former Vice Chairman of the Forsyth Medical Institute.
Phil received his BS from Syracuse University and an MS in Management from MIT, where he was an Alfred Sloan Fellow.