New Frontiers
Cooper was recruited as a national EVP of sales and marketing at Richmond American Homes in 1997. At Richmond, she had the opportunity to move out of the marketing realm and into the role of operations, which seemed like a natural fit.
“There were times it was hard for me to get the respect of colleagues with me as a 32-, 33-year-old telling them what I thought,” she says. “It was really hard. But my drive paid off—I caught the corporate team’s attention.”
“I talk about not getting a college degree because it always fueled me. I felt I had to push hard and work harder than everyone else.”
When a position opened in Las Vegas, the 33-year-old Cooper came in as division president. She had to learn to the entire business—from land to construction to accounting—and make sacrifices along the way.
“It hasn’t been an easy road,” Cooper says. “I took two weeks off for my maternity leave. But when you’re a division president and your counterparts don’t take any maternity leave time off, you do certain things.”
In 2014, Cooper moved on to Century Communities—a recent addition to the public market and a company in rapid growth mode—as an executive vice president overseeing regional market operations across divisions in Colorado, Texas, and Nevada.
“Operations is what I do,” says Cooper. “I make sure divisions have what they need, understand what we need, and work to integrate the two.”
