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SUSAN COWELL

Director & FEMBA Career Coach

Susan Cowell, Director & FEMBA Career Coach, brings over 20 years experience in the field of career management and leadership to UCLA.

In her most recent position with Lee Hecht Harrison, she managed the consultants and coached executives in the Southern California Region. She is proud to have led a team that delivered the highest quality in the company. Prior to joining Lee Hecht Harrison, Susan spent 18 years with Drake Beam Morin, where she held positions of increasing responsibility. Drake Beam Morin and Lee Hecht Harrison are leading international career management firms who work with mid-career business professionals and executives from Fortune 500 companies.

During her tenure with Drake Beam Morin, Susan held a variety of positions in counseling, coaching, sales, marketing and leadership. She is an experienced counselor and coach, and has had the opportunity to work with individuals from all industries and functions. In her most recent position as Senior Vice President for North American Operations Support, she managed 5 teams and over 120 employees and was responsible for Quality, Project Management, Internal Sales and Web-learning. In these roles, she had the opportunity to develop strategic initiatives within the organization that improved quality, leadership, profit and revenue while improving employee morale.

Susan’s background also includes entrepreneurial experience as owner of Executive Career Services, a career management firm. She helped to build this small company into a $3 million business with offices throughout southern California in less than 1 year. The firm specialized in providing individual career counseling and executive coaching to business professionals and executives. Early in her career, Susan worked at Humboldt State University, in the Student Employment Office, assisting students in the early stages of their education and career.

Susan received her Bachelors of Arts Degree in Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine and also holds a California teaching credential. She was past president of the International Association of Career Management Professionals and a member of ASTD.

DAVID COOLEY (CERT '08)

Director, Alumni Career Services

David Cooley (CERT ’08) has been the Director of Alumni Career Services in the Office of Alumni Relations since 2014, meeting with an average of 500 alumni each year. He joined the Office of Alumni Relations after 8 years as a highly-rated career coach to students in UCLA Anderson’s Full Time MBA program from 2006-2014. In June 2013, David received UCLA Anderson’s Abraham Ackerman Staff Excellence Award.

David provides individual career coaching, group career coaching, webinars and program delivery to UCLA Anderson alumni of all experience levels — in all stages of their career, including recent alumni and C-suite executives and all levels between — providing job search strategy, networking strategy, mock interviews, leadership development and 1:1 career management coaching and more to the 42,000 alumni of the MBA, MFE, MSBA and PhD alumni in the UCLA Anderson Alumni Network.

He has a certification in General Management from UCLA Anderson School of Management's Executive Program, a certification in individual and organizational coaching from the Hudson Institute of Coaching and a holds a BA in Communications from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is currently earning a M.S. in Executive Coaching and Organizational Consulting at NYU.