Antoinette (Toni) Cooper

Wealth Management Director-Atlantic Region, Wachovia Wealth Management, Summit, N.J.

Antoinette Cooper has spent her entire professional career in the financial services industry and currently is wealth management director for the Atlantic Region at Wachovia Wealth Man-agement, a unit of Wach-ovia Corp. One of the highest ranking African-American females at Wachovia, she is responsible for managing the delivery of private banking services, financial planning, trust and investment management, estate planning, charitable services and insurance for a region that includes New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. That region is currently experiencing double-digit growth rates.

Cooper has a track record for high performance. Indeed, her career at Wachovia blossomed in Connecticut, where she led the Greenwich team to the No. 1 sales performance spot among Wachovia’s 50 Wealth Management teams across the East Coast. “Toni is a proven leader with a passion for serving her clients and the community,” says Linda Bowden, Wachovia Wealth Management’s managing executive, who, Cooper says, taught her “what success looks like.”

Cooper began her career in financial services at Chase Bank in New York City and worked at Fleet Bank, Citibank and Manufacturers Hanover Trust before joining Wachovia in 1994.

Cooper says she is indebted to her mother who “taught me the value of moral and ethical behavior;” to her own family, who are “there to pick me up when I stumble or fall.” A Princeton University graduate, she is currently participating in the Wachovia Executive Leadership Program at the University of North Carolina Keenan-Flagler Business School and also is pursuing studies at Kaplan College to become a certified financial planner.

With her motto “only take what you need but give all you can,” Cooper gives all she can to whatever she does. She was co-chair of the 2005 National Conference for the National Center for Black Philanthropy, a service she considers a great honor, and currently serves on the board of directors for the Louise Wise Adoption Agency, which handled her own adoption. Among her personal triumphs is the scaling of a 50-foot wall during a team-building event in Raleigh, N.C., she says.