FRED COOPER
MPP '84
Fred Cooper is a Senior Fortune 500 Executive with extensive entrepreneurial leadership experience in Finance, Business Development, and Strategy in dynamic world-class private sector, non-profit, and governmental real estate organizations.
For 32 years, from 1993–2025, Fred served as Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Senior Vice President of Finance, International Development and Investor Relations, at Toll Brothers, a national $10+ billion revenue, investment-grade rated Fortune 500 Company.
Founded in 1967, NYSE-listed since 1986, and ranked the 4th largest U.S. home builder by revenues, Toll is also among the largest land and community developers in the U.S., one of the nation’s largest multifamily apartment developers, and a major urban high-rise/high-density condo and rental developer with 50+ buildings and 7,000+ units completed.
Fred joined Toll in 1993 to launch, lead and grow its Finance & Investor Relations Departments. The teams he led have raised over $40 billion in corporate and project finance capital from the public, institutional and bank markets and from other domestic and international sources to fuel Toll's growth from a $200+ million revenue regional homebuilder to a Fortune 500 $10+ billion revenue national homebuilding/land development company.
Fred established institutional-quality relationships with U.S. and international debt and equity providers partnering to help drive the growth of Toll’s various platforms: homebuilding, rental apartment, urban condo, land banking, land acquisition & development, build-to-rent and others.
Fred led exploration of international development and partnering opportunities with investors and developers in Asia, Latin America, Canada, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and raised significant joint venture capital from international partners investing in over $2 billion of major U.S. development projects.
As Head of Investor Relations, Fred helped build Toll into a globally recognized brand named World’s Most Admired Homebuilder 8 times by Fortune magazine. Fred has been named to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Executive Team over a dozen times for Toll’s award-winning Finance & Investor Relations Program.
He has strong domestic and international business experience in finance, real estate and housing in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and MENA markets.
Fred Cooper was born and raised in New York City. He began his real estate career in New York City at the community development level focused on economic development and affordable housing in Brooklyn and the South Bronx from 1980 to 1983.
From 1984 to 1989, he served as Senior Vice President – Finance and Business Development, for the NYC Economic Development Corp., - New York City’s economic development bank - formerly NYC Financial Services Corp. (FSC). A member of the Executive Committee responsible for setting policy for FSC., his teams financed over $1 billion of urban redevelopment projects across the five boroughs, including major public-private partnerships.
From 1989 to 1993, he served as Director of Corporate Finance and Planning for DKM Properties Corp., the fully integrated real estate development, investment, and asset management arm of The Dyson Kissner Moran Corporation, a Forbes Private 50 Family Office. DKM developed and asset managed an 11 million square foot, 50+ property portfolio of urban and suburban retail, office, residential, industrial, life science/biotech, mixed-use, land, and redevelopment properties.
Fred holds a BA from Brown University, a Master of Public Policy in Finance, International Development, and Housing & Economic Development from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and completed the Advanced Professional Program in Finance at New York University’s Stern Business School, with a focus on corporate and real estate finance.
He serves on The Harvard Alumni Real Estate Board; the University of Wisconsin Graaskamp Real Estate Center; The Urban Land Institute Global Exchange Council and as a ULI Global Governing Trustee; Friends of Kenya Community Development Foundation USA; Brown Alumni Real Estate Group; Asian Real Estate Assn. of America NYC Chapter; Asian Real Estate Professionals Assn. NYC Chapter; and The Community Builders NYC Advisory Board.
He has advised a variety of private sector and nonprofit organizations involved in affordable housing and real estate in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, including Wharton's International Housing Finance Program, The World Bank, REALL, Acorn Holdings Kenya, and, through Stanford University’s SEED Program, Lesma Engineering Kenya and Urbanea Benin.
Fred is a frequent University Guest Lecturer, Industry Conference Panelist and Moderator.
