In planning a career path that would eventually lead to becoming vice president of one of the world’s largest multinational insurance companies, most people would not start at a fast food restaurant.
Lisa Cooper did. In 1982, after earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Clark University, she went to work as a manager at a Burger King.
And it wasn’t a desperate move. The job market was poor, but Cooper said she only remembers applying to two places: Papa Gino’s and Burger King.
As she said recently, “With a bachelor’s degree in sociology, what are you going to do?
“I feel like, while it sounds a little bit hokey,” Cooper added, “it was an awesome entry to management and to leadership.”
Ovens were on timers, the oil temperature had to be right and the franchise owner was across the street, looking out of his office window, timing the speed of cars through the drive-through.
“It was the toughest management experience I’d ever had,” Cooper said from her office at FM Global. Now, as the vice president and manager of engineering and client systems, information systems, she oversees 90 information technology professionals and contractors for a $4.5 billion company.
After Burger King, Cooper went on to earn master’s degrees in business administration and management-information systems, both from Boston University.
From there, she tried her hand at some programming at Data General. In five years she worked in three departments – logistics, IT and then she became a business analyst. Pouring over lines of code wasn’t her passion, she found.
“But,” she said, “I really liked working with technical people.”
In 1991 she came to Factory Mutual, which was, at the time, the engineering branch of the company that is now FM Global. Always with an eye to her future, she considered the move a permanent one.
Technology had just begun to play a major role in the insurance agency, Cooper said, and since the company didn’t manufacture anything – it sells information –“Information and people are everything.”
Right out of the gate, she took off. She streamlined the company’s old terminal-based systems to an advanced, personal computer-based one, increasing self-sufficiency among the engineers.
She initiated the creation of a new software platform for human resources and oversaw the launch of a new software development project for the company’s more than 1,500 loss-prevention engineers.
According to FM Global Chief Information Officer Jeanne Lieb, Cooper is the only female vice president of about 370 IT professionals and she’s the youngest vice president among all of her company peers.
And during her professional ascent, she took a giant personal step, adopting a child and becoming a single parent. She has given advice to other women who are thinking about how adoption might affect their careers.
“I managed to be a single parent for many years and to advance in my career,” she said.
She’s still looking for opportunities. Cooper said she sees herself moving, not only up the ladder, but laterally as well.
“I’m very happy if this is what I do,” she said, but she lets it be known that she is open-minded about her future with the company. •
