The mouthful
Cooper Pickett is a Managing Partner and co-founder of Terra, where he helps companies turn complex business challenges into clear marketing strategies built to grow.
His career has moved through entrepreneurship, e-commerce, startup marketing, content, and digital strategy. Before building the agency that would become Terra, Cooper founded businesses in the sports and subscription spaces and served as CMO of a real estate startup. He later co-founded Longneck & Thunderfoot, a content-focused digital agency launched out of the Columbia Startup Lab.
Today, he brings that mix of operator and strategist experience to Terra, helping organizations connect business goals to marketing decisions, identify the opportunities worth pursuing, and turn strategy into measurable action.
Favorite Quote
“...each caesura, and the heavy blows of fate, fall like gentle sleep itself into his workshop labour. About it he draws a charmed circle of fragments.” - Walter Benjamin
What Cooper does around here
Growth strategy
Finding the clearest path from business goal to marketing plan, without adding complexity for complexity’s sake.
Brand positioning + messaging
Making complicated companies easier to understand and harder to ignore.
Demand generation
Connecting brand, content, channels, and performance around the audiences most likely to matter.
Digital marketing strategy
Building smarter systems for how brands show up, reach people, and turn attention into action.
Performance + analytics
Looking past vanity metrics to understand what marketing is actually doing for the business.
How he got here
Terra · Managing Partner
Cooper leads strategy and client engagements across Terra’s enterprise and high-growth accounts. Terra is the latest chapter of the agency business he helped build from its earliest days.
Thunderfoot · CEO / Co-founder
Led the agency through an expansion of its services across brand storytelling, experience design, sales enablement, and growth marketing.
Longneck & Thunderfoot · CEO / Co-founder
Co-founded the company out of the Columbia Startup Lab to help brands respond to the growing need for thoughtful, high-quality digital content. The agency began with content creation and expanded its clients, expertise, and digital capabilities over time.
Earlier entrepreneurship + startup marketing
Before launching L&T, Cooper served as CMO of a real estate startup and founded e-commerce businesses in the sports and subscription spaces, building his foundation in marketing strategy, growth, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
Education + entrepreneurial community
Columbia University · Columbia College, Class of 2010
Cooper attended Columbia University from 2006–2010 and later remained involved with Columbia Entrepreneurship and the Columbia Startup Lab.
He has also participated in Princeton University’s Employer in Residence program, served on the Columbia Startup Lab leadership committee, spoken on entrepreneurship and marketing panels, and taught web marketing at General Assembly.
The credibility bit
Cooper has spent more than a decade building and leading digital businesses, from e-commerce ventures and startup marketing to co-founding the agency that became Terra. A Columbia University graduate and longtime member of the Columbia entrepreneurship community, he has also contributed to startup programs, industry panels, and marketing education while helping grow Terra into a global digital marketing and creative agency.
Cooper’s office mate
Ernie the dog
