Charles Cohen is the president and CEO of Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation, the company founded by his family in the 1950s. Cohen Brothers owns and manages more than 12 million square feet of office space and design centers across the country, including 623 Fifth Avenue, the Decoration & Design Building and the Pacific Design Center designed by Argentine architect César Pelli in West Hollywood, Calif.

He was also the co-producer of the film Frozen River, which in 2009 received Oscar nominations for best original screenplay and best actress.

In 2015 Cohens firm renamed its 32-story 135 East 57th Street, as Tower Fifty Seven. The property on Billionaires Row was at the time headed for a $7 million renovation and upgrade, according to the Wall Street Journal. Charles Cohen told the newspaper that naming the building creates an identity that puts a whole new face on it. The tower includes a mix of tenants, from financial services firms to high-end cosmetics companies, according to the newspaper.

In 2014, Cohen told The Real Deal that he had no plans to step down, and the family-run New York-based business had no heir apparent.

Cohen came under and unwelcome spotlight in 2020 when a lawsuit by three furloughed employees complained of a toxic work environment, alleging that Cohen had “a longstanding reputation for verbally abusing, screaming at, berating, belittling, and humiliating employees.”

The lawsuit also alleged that Cohen dismissed employees' concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic and the firm went out of its way to prevent employees from working remotely, even as Cohen left the city with his family for a yacht in the Caribbean.

An attorney representing the firm called the lawsuit’s claims “totally baseless.”