By John Torget T’00, Director, Tuck Annual Giving
John Torget leads Tuck Annual Giving to maximize unrestricted financial support from alumni and corporate matching donors. Prior to 2009, he held various strategy and business development leadership roles at Dealertrack Technologies and J.P. Morgan Chase in New York.
A Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship dinner in New York last month offered tremendous opportunity for select second-year Tuck students to network with alumni in leadership roles across buyout, venture capital, and startup companies. This year, after-dinner remarks were given by Richard Friedman, head of Merchant Banking at Goldman Sachs and received rave reviews. During Mr. Friedman’s introduction, Goldman Sachs partner Michael Koester T'99 highlighted the value of the Tuck network as a defining hallmark of Tuck. Dinner conversations throughout the evening fully illustrated this point many times over.
At my own table, current student, Jaclyn Kossmann T’15 and alumnus Adam Godfrey T’92 marveled at how the Tuck network continuously provides each of them tremendous value in their personal and professional lives. After starting her career in the energy business in Scotland, Jaclyn moved to Portland, Oregon to work in a clean energy startup business before ultimately applying to Tuck. In Portland, Jaclyn met an alumna, Andrea T'08, through a mutual friend. Andrea then introduced her to several Tuck friends, which ultimately influenced Jacklyn’s decision to attend Tuck.
While in class this fall, one of Jaclyn’s favorite visiting executives was Alan Goldberg, a partner at private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg. The dinner conversation quickly pivoted back to Adam, who before founding his own firm, was a partner at Lindsay Goldberg. In a matter of minutes, the dinner conversation was non-stop back and forth highlighting the interconnections between this current Tuck student and Tuck alumnus. Within less than 10 minutes of knowing each other, they demonstrated the power of the Tuck network and how students and alumni from all different class years share a common bond that makes Tuck a very special place.