Mitch Cole (MA ’20) Helps Others Thrive After 40-Year Business Career

After a 40-year career, Mitch Cole (MA ’20, Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness) retired from Willis Towers Watson (WTW), a global company offering insurance brokerage, risk management, and employee benefits services. But thanks to a volunteer role that changed everything, he is now a practicing psychotherapist with a thriving second career.

After retiring from WTW in 2017 in his role as managing director, he began volunteering at The Den for Grieving Kids in Darien, Connecticut, which offers grief support groups for children and families experiencing loss. “My own father died when I was 14, so I thought my experience would give me something to offer these kids,” says Mitch. “I quickly realized that many of these kids were suffering grief well beyond the Den’s support protocols.”

Wanting to learn more about their grief, Mitch began asking local universities if he could audit some classes in psychology and grief, but he was repeatedly told he must be a matriculating student at the university. Then he found NYU Steinhardt.

“Everyone I spoke to at NYU was so supportive—they said why don’t you just apply and see what happens, and the next thing I knew I was in class,” says Mitch. He enrolled in NYU Steinhardt’s Master of Arts in Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness program, finding that as he immersed himself in the program he wanted to do more than just get a degree.

“Applied psychology opened a whole new insight to me, and I learned so much about myself and the way I see the world,” says Mitch, who calls his journey more of a calling than a career change. “Twenty-five years ago, a WTW client who worked at Citibank told me he was leaving to get his PhD in psychology. I thought that was the most wonderful and courageous thing. I gave some thought then to doing the same. If I had been braver back then, I might have done it, too.”

Today, Mitch works at The Bennett Center for Behavioral Health, which is part of Jewish Family Services of Greenwich. He sees adult and adolescent patients virtually and in person, working to help his clients achieve a more fulfilling life. “Every one of my clients mostly does the best they can every day,” says Mitch. “It’s my job to help them evolve from where they are to where they hope to be—that is, to achieve a more fulfilled life of meaning.”

Mitch also holds his BBA and MBA from Fox School of Business at Temple University.