Passion and Perseverance: Ali Cooley ‘03 Inspires the Next Generation of Gamechangers

"If I can reduce all of your anxiety by just five percent today, I will be very, very happy,” said Ali Cooley ‘03 as she stood before a packed assembly on an April morning at Hopkins. 

Cooley knew that just mentioning climate change could cause some to feel overwhelmed, but the message she was about to deliver was not one of doom and gloom. Instead, she discussed turning challenges into opportunities and anxiety into inspiration. 

Bestowed with the honor of Hopkins Spring Fellow for the 2023-2024 school year, Cooley had returned to share insights from her time at Hopkins and her trailblazing career in which she’s playing a major role in developing financial innovations to scale the adoption of clean energy. 

When describing her life and career, Cooley used poker—a game that involves skill and cunning but also a great deal of luck—as a metaphor. For example, Cooley thinks of her time at Hopkins as “a very lucky card” she was dealt.

“This place had that amazing combination of kindness and high achievement which provided me a path to success I would have never imagined for myself.” 

Growing up with parents who were both struggling entrepreneurs, Cooley said that while her experience at the School was positive, her adolescence was simultaneously met with “a lot of financial instability at home.” This uncertainty led her to originally pursue a stable career in law, and she entered the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate ready to follow that plan. However, a class on environmental conservation sparked a deep curiosity in not only climate change but the private sector’s role in addressing it. This inspiration eventually led her to pursue graduate studies at Yale University, where she earned an MBA in addition to a master’s degree in environmental management. 

Suddenly she had entered a profession marked by instability and uncertainty. It was not quite the safe plan she had envisioned, but Cooley's determination to fight for a cause she believed in transcended her worry for the risks involved. 

After Yale, Cooley took a job at the Connecticut Green Bank, a state government agency  focused on accelerating the green economy by using limited public dollars to attract private capital investment. it was there where she met Jessica Bailey, a co-worker who matched her passion for affecting positive change. Together, they worked on develop the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) program, which enables commercial properties to finance green upgrades through private sector investments. 

"It brought private capital in without significant investment from the public sector,” said Cooley. “All the public sector had to do was pass a law," she explained.

While the achievement was notable, Cooley and Bailey's ambitions were larger.

“We realized we weren’t going to have the impact we wanted to have within the tiny state of Connecticut, as great of a state as it is,” Cooley explained. 

In 2015, Cooley and Bailey decided to put all of their poker chips into co-founding their own company: Greenworks Lending, a startup focused on clean energy financing for commercial buildings. Their small team worked to expand the market, convince building owners to adopt clean energy measures, and attract large investors to support their mission. 

Cooley is quick to caution that while the company is now playing a direct role in significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions, this was not an overnight success story. She said she and her team members had to constantly adapt to new challenges and failures, and it was a “force of sheer will” combined once again with luck, that helped move things in the right direction. 

“The truth about my career is that it’s a bunch of things that seemed like bad luck at the time, disguised as good luck,” she said.

It was grueling work that often felt too large a tackle, but the gamble would soon pay off. The company grew significantly and was eventually acquired by Nuveen, where it was rebranded as Nuveen Green Capital. Today, Nuveen Green Capital has made over $2 billion in loans to nearly 1,000 properties across the United States, with estimated energy savings equivalent to reforesting about 200 square miles of land for 20 years—a space roughly ten times the size of New Haven. 

Cooley cited the people she has met along the way as evidence of luck. She said it’s the partnerships she formed with people whose values and strategic thinking aligned with hers that made the difference. Cooley noted that finding solutions to climate change challenges often require public-private partnerships and a lot of buy-in from different constituencies. Since these obstacles can’t be overcome by one individual or one company alone, building relationships becomes paramount.

"Relationships are worth investing in because the older you get, the less time  you have to forge meaningful connections that will support you on an entrepreneurial venture,” she noted.

While Cooley’s determination played a big factor in her success, she said the most important factor has been following her joy – something she discovered early in her career.

“I started to realize in management consulting that I had these two anxieties: one was climate change and the other was that I needed to care about what I was doing to be good at it.” 

Cooley's visit to Hopkins also included classroom visits and a Q&A luncheon, where she engaged with students on topics related to women’s history, statistics, public speaking, and entrepreneurship. 

One of the goals of the Hopkins Fellows Program is to connect students with alumni who can inspire and educate by sharing their unique experiences. Cooley’s presentation accomplished just that—as the next generation of game changers attempt to turn the cards they've been dealt into a fulfilling and impactful life.

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