On yesterday, Mayor William Bell appointed Ms. Lisa D. Cooper as the City of Birmingham Director of Economic Development.
Recognized in the Birmingham community as a focused professional, Lisa D. Cooper is known for her business acumen, sense of humor and dedication to business development which makes her well suited for her role as Executive Director in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development for the City of Birmingham. Cooper is currently leading the team that comprises the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, which is responsible for efforts to facilitate growth and diversification of Birmingham’s economic platform through business recruitment, retention and expansion. In particular, Economic Development seeks to create meaningful employment opportunities for all citizens, thus providing a stable and growing tax base for the City of Birmingham.
A graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Cooper earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Marketing, Cooper has a broad background in the financial services industry.
In a professional career that has spanned over 34 years, Cooper previously served as a banking executive in the financial services industry working with commercial giants including Central Bank of the South (now known as BBVA Compass Bank) and National Bank of Commerce. In 1997, Cooper joined the Birmingham Business Resource Center (BBRC) as their Deputy Director and managed a team of lending professionals that administered a multi-million dollar commercial loan portfolio for the SBA.
She is a past honoree of the Birmingham Business Journal Top Birmingham Women and a graduate of the 2008 Class of Leadership Birmingham.
In the local community, she serves on various boards including the CRA Board of BancorpSouth, Advisory Board of Magic City Harvest and is the current Secretary of the Magic City Chapter of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA). She is a member of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church and in her spare time enjoys coming up with “bad lawyer jokes” to tell her husband Larry Cooper, Managing Partner of The Cooper Law Firm.
Lisa believes that first and foremost she is a servant of God and has been married to Attorney Lawrence Cooper for the past 15 years.
