ictor Cohen, B.A.’74, believes his years at the University at Albany were an exceptional period in campus history. They also presented him with opportunities that would later help shape his career in corporate and international law and business with one of the world’s most successful fashion retail brands: Polo Ralph Lauren. 

“It was an exciting time for both students and faculty,” recalled Cohen, who enrolled as a freshman in the fall of 1970 from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. “Our uptown campus was new, virtually everything about the campus was new, and everything was being challenged. I lived in the first coed dorm the school had, which was on Indian Quad. And the grading system was mandatory pass-fail. The idea was that students shouldn’t have to worry about grades, they should just be there to learn.” 

Cohen, a psychology major, did indeed soak up the early ’70s ambience that Albany offered. He signed up for a wide range of traditional and non-traditional courses during the campus’s two-year experiment with pass-fail grading. He also made many new friends, served in the dorms as a resident advisor for two years, and worked “two obscure slots”—Saturdays at 8 a.m. and a midweek time—as a D.J with the campus radio station, then WSUA and now WCDB. By his own admission, he wasn’t nearly as career-focused as today’s students seem to be. 

“I had no idea what I wanted to do. Psychology was something I had a vague interest in, and it grew, but it wasn’t enough for me to think about a career in it,” says Cohen, adding that he also had nearly enough credits to minor in physics. After graduation, he took a job in construction in Troy, then briefly lived in California. Finally, he enrolled in law school at St. John’s University, where he says, he became a “more serious student” and was a Law Review editor before his graduation in 1978. 

“At that point, I had the impression I wanted to be involved in international or securities law,” Cohen said. He went to work first for a small firm in New York City, then moved to a “megafirm.” There, one of his “little clients” in the early 1980s was a young apparel firm then known as Polo Fashions, Inc. In 1983, Ralph Lauren asked him to establish the company’s own in-house legal department. Today, Cohen is senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary for Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., with responsibilities that include managing the legal and corporate affairs of one of the best known consumer brands. In June of 1997, Cohen and his staff of five lawyers oversaw the corporation’s move to become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. The firm’s brand names include “Polo,” “Polo by Ralph Lauren,” “Polo Sport,” “Polo Jeans Co.,” and “Chaps,” among others. 

“It’s been a wonderful place to work,” Cohen says. “It’s a very creative, personal and intimate place, even though sales of Polo Ralph Lauren products have grown to over $3 billion worldwide.” Polo’s  products, which include not only apparel for men, women and children, but also accessories, home furnishings and fragrances, are sold in upscale department and specialty stores in some 70 countries. Cohen still works directly with company founder and chairman Ralph Lauren. 

“He is very active, and very much the leader of the company,” Cohen says. “Besides being a terrific designer, he is a businessman without comparison. He has always set the tone.” 

Friendly and unassuming, the 45-year-old Cohen occupies a corner office at Polo Ralph Lauren’s corporate headquarters at 650 Madison Avenue in New York City. His work space is accented with baseball memorabilia (he is an ardent New York Yankees fan) and photos of his wife, June Witterschein, who teaches appellate law at Seton Hall Law School, and their three children, Joanna, 10, and twins Liam and Thomas, who are 7. They live in Teaneck, N.J. 

Cohen advises aspiring lawyers to be well rounded and willing to try different things. He believes they should also have a good grounding in writing and be able to think on their feet. “I see students today who are very focused and trying to get an early start in business or law,” he says. “That’s O.K., but law is one of those fields where everything you do before getting into law can be of value.”