Roger J. Cooper
Roger J. Cooper is a retired international banking executive. He also supports theatre production companies and nonprofits that assist developmentally disabled individuals.
Mr. Cooper managed J.P. Morgan Chase’s investment bank operation, including securities trading and custody, derivatives, money market, and foreign exchange operation, throughout North, Central, and South America (excluding the United States). Prior to this, he spent many years at Citibank in various functions within operations and technology.
He has lived and worked in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York. When living in Caracas, Venezuela, he also was a professor of systems engineering at the Universidad Metropolitana.
He started his career as a research chemist at Proctor & Gamble, where he developed laundry detergents.
Community Service
Since 1991, Mr. Cooper has been chairman of Community Living Corporation, the Mt. Kisco, N.Y.-based nonprofit that serves developmentally disabled individuals. It has grown from a small 14 resident "Mom and Pop" organization to become a group of companies that provides a residential program (40 homes), ambulette transportation (38 vehicles), supplemental needs trusts (400 trusts valued at $40 million); artistic expression (painting, sculpture, choral and theatre) and therapeutic riding (24 horses on 140 acres) and advocacy. Mr. Cooper also serves on the boards of two off-Broadway theatres: Treasurer of Emerging Artists Theatre (since 2002) and Producer Living Room Theatre (since 2014). He has been involved as producer of movies and as an actor in many overseas TV, film, and theatre productions dating back to the mid-1960s in England. He joined the University of New Haven’s Board of Governors in 2016.
Education
After early education in England, Mr. Cooper studied chemical engineering at the Universidad IberoAmericana (in Spanish) in Mexico City and received bachelor’s degrees in physics and chemistry from the United States International University in San Diego. After retirement, he undertook post-graduate studies in linguistic anthropology (Mesoamerican focus) at SUNY Albany. The University of New Haven awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2019.
Personal
Born in Mexico City of English parents, Mr. Cooper lived in various countries. He is married to Anne Cooper and has two sons, one in Westchester and the other in England, and two grandchildren living in England and Scotland. He divides his time between his homes in Vermont, Manhattan, and England.