Jen Kaufmann is Chief of Staff at Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, where she works hand in hand with the founder and CEO to maintain clear business priorities, execute deliverables and steward company alignment to the every-growing organization.
She sits at the center of the company’s leadership team and serves as a close advisor and thought partner to the CEO. Jen helps connect strategy to what’s actually happening across the business, ensuring priorities translate into action. Her role spans shaping leadership rhythms, supporting enterprise planning and stepping into complex, cross-functional works that need clarity and forward momentum. She also supports key executive communications as well as select personal priorities as an extension of the CEO’s office.
Prior to her time at Cooper’s Hawk, Jen held leadership roles at Lorient, LLC and Shawmut Design and Construction, where she focused on development and execution. Over the course of her career, she has supported restaurant builds in 22 states, leading large-scale projects and navigating the realities of rapid expansion. In 2020, she transitioned into her current role by leveraging that foundation in project management, operations, and cross-functional leadership. That experience continues to shape how she operates today – practical, grounded and focused on making things actually work.
Real stories from women who hit a wall, a breaking point, or a moment that changed everything, and came out the other side with something better. Each story ends with the one thing she'd tell her younger self standing in that exact moment: the advice, the permission, the warning. A celebration of the turns nobody saw coming, and the wisdom only hindsight can give you.
