As Co-Founder & CEO of Cooper/Smith, Hannah Cooper Klein has raised over $30 million while leading technical teams and policy experts to deliver digital infrastructure in some of the world’s most complex environments. Before founding the company, she led Monitoring, Evaluation, and Quality at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (PEPFAR).
TAKEAWAYS
Leadership Without a Boss is Lonely
In big hierarchies, you get constant signals about whether you’re doing a good job. As a founder, the default is silence. It’s important to surround yourself with truth-telling advisors, create grounding rituals, and develop the muscle to separate “this is hard” from “I’m failing.” The upside is agency and that autonomy is powerful.
“One week you’re building the next Google, the next you’re running a very stressful lemonade stand. Both can be true in the same quarter.”
Funders and Clients Buy Stories, Not Just Systems
Yes, the tech matters—but stories travel; diagrams don’t. The line that opened doors for us wasn’t a spec; it was a result: “We’re improving healthcare by getting the right treatment to the right person, at the right time.” If your story is clear, people carry it into rooms you’ll never enter.