Alisa Cohn

Named the Top Startup Coach in the World at the Thinkers50/Marshall Goldsmith Global Coaches Awards in London, Alisa Cohn has been coaching startup founders to grow into world-class CEOs for nearly 20 years. She is the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up. A one-time startup CFO and current strategy consultant, angel investor, and advisor, she was named the number one “Global Guru” of startups in 2021 and has worked with startup companies such as Venmo, Etsy, DraftKings, The Wirecutter, Mack Weldon, and Tory Burch. She has also coached CEOs and C-Suite executives at enterprise clients such as Dell, Hitachi, Sony, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, The New York Times, and Calvin Klein.

Marshall Goldsmith selected Cohn as one of his Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches — a gathering of the top coaches in the world — and Inc named her one of the top 100 leadership speakers. She has also been named one of the top voices of thought leadership by PeopleHum for 2021.

Cohn is a guest lecturer at Harvard and Cornell Universities, Henley Business School, and the Naval War College. She is the executive coach for Runway — the incubator at Cornell NYC Tech that helps post-docs commercialize their technology and build companies. She serves on the board of the Cornell Advisory Council. She has coached public and political figures including the former supreme-court chief justice of Sri Lanka and the first female minister in the transitional government of Afghanistan.

Her articles have appeared in HBR, Forbes, and Inc, and she has been featured as an expert on Bloomberg TV and BBC World News as well as in The New York Times. Additionally, she is a Broadway investor in productions which have won two Tony Awards and is prone to burst into song at the slightest provocation.