Recently, Vika Yaremchuk and Marta Rogach—exchange students from Lviv Business School in Ukraine—gathered more than 70 Tuck students, professors, and TPs to learn about Ukrainian culture through a hands-on event. Participants painted Easter eggs, competed in a Ukraine quiz, ate a delicious Ukrainian dinner, and learned more about the country and its unique traditions.

Vika

The more I’ve traveled, the more I’ve come to love and cherish Ukrainian traditions, which have their unique and very old history. They survived centuries of repression, bans, tragedies, and lives lost. So, when we started thinking about the event, I already knew that I want to teach people one of my favorite Ukrainian traditions—Easter egg painting, the tradition which dates back to pre-Christian times and appeals to something very unifying and eternal—calling for sun and warmth of summer. Every year before Easter, together with friends and family, we decorate and paint eggs with different patterns using wax pencils. This is a meditative, usually pretty long, and always very fun activity while spending time with those close to you. It felt like the right thing to share and do together with my Tuck classmates as we learned about each other’s culture, values, and creativity. It was an opportunity to step out of one’s comfort zone while in a supportive environment.

Leading up to the event, I felt it was necessary to show Ukraine as it has not yet been shown in the news and media—Ukraine as it was before the full-fledged invasion by Russia on February 24, 2022. It feels that every month we lose parts of our former lives, and with every day of this war, we slowly forget how it was to live a normal life and not actively think about the need to survive.

I’ve not kept a diary or a journal of the war, which I’m sorry about, but even more, I’m sorry we Ukrainians, started forgetting how it was before the war. There were feasts and daily meals of great food, amazing literature and cinema, a flourishing entrepreneurship culture, big agriculture and industry, great coffee and wine festivals, a bustling theater scene, amazing sports competitions, wonderful youth eco-initiatives, and many more things. Above all, we were all building plans for the future and many of us were hurrying back home for Christmas, Easter, and other holidays from all over the world. This year, Marta and I couldn’t be home for Easter, so we wanted to share some Easter with our fellow Tuckies, as well as let them taste and touch Ukraine in a different way.

Marta

The idea to organize an event and share a piece of Ukraine with Tuckies came to me before my arrival here in Hanover. I have spent many years living abroad and always enjoyed learning more about other cultures and traditions, trying different national dishes, and meeting people from all over the world. But Ukraine was always in my heart—the history of my country has always excited me and made me feel proud, the warmest memories of my life are associated with our traditions, our food has always been my favorite, and our language the most beautiful.

Two years ago, I moved back to Ukraine from Poland and felt very happy to return to the place I love with all my heart. I couldn’t even imagine that a year after that I would wake up to the new reality in which war became routine for me. The war changed many things, including my attitude to patriotism, and love for the country and culture. These feelings have grown infinitely and now it is difficult to convey how proud I am that I belong to the nation of real heroes—courageous, strong, fearless. For many years, we were not noticed and our incredible nature, delicious food, unsurpassed music, interesting traditions, and great achievements in sports and science were not noticed as well. But now it’s time to speak up.

This event became an opportunity for me to introduce at least a small part of Ukraine to people. This was an opportunity to show and explain what we are so desperately fighting for. After the Russian invasion, the press and media began to talk a lot about Ukraine and show footage of the invasion and the destruction they brought to our land. So, I am sure that most people have seen what the war in Ukraine looks like, but in order to truly understand us, it is important to see what a peaceful Ukraine looks like.

Marta and Vika are exchange students from Ukraine who joined Tuck for the 2023 spring term. They both are originally from Lviv, Ukraine, and are graduating this year from Lviv Business School at Ukrainian Catholic University. Marta is finishing her Master's degree in marketing management and Vika’s major is technology management. They have been very excited about coming to Tuck and sharing their stories about studying and working during times of war.

T’24s Fiona Bowen and Charlie Jersey reflect on their time in Japan alongside 70 Tuck classmates. Five Japanese students led the trek to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima.

Fiona Bowen T’24

For this year’s spring break, a group of nearly 70 Tuckies embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime trek to Japan. With travel restrictions recently lifted, we resumed an annual Tuck tradition of eating, touring, and bullet-training our way through a beautiful country on the opposite side of the globe from Hanover.

Our Japanese classmates were the best hosts and guides we could have asked for—huge thank you to Kakeru Tsubota T’23, Daiju Matsukura T’23, Yuka Sugimori T’24, Takuya Ogawa T’24, and Tetsuya Hokoyama T’24 for making the trip possible.

We started the trip in Tokyo, a city of 14 million people that somehow pairs urban hustle and bustle with pristine order and cleanliness. Single-file subway queues, spotless sidewalks, and the absence of honking horns set the city apart from any other I had visited. Our first day was jam-packed with a city tour, traditional drumming lessons, and a karaoke-infused dinner cruise. Later we broke into smaller groups to sample cat café subculture, track down iconic souffle pancakes, and shop for limited-release sneakers. All these activities were fueled by some of the best food I’ve ever eaten—a personal favorite was the ramen I ordered by vending machine at a tiny counter-serve spot.

The Japan trek was a unique opportunity to experience a new country and culture, while also bonding with my Tuck classmates. It was my first visit to Asia, and I felt so comfortable in the hands of our extremely capable hosts. With their guidance, we were able to seamlessly navigate the cities we visited and fully immerse ourselves in the food, language, history, and architecture. I came away from the trip with a new understanding and appreciation of Japanese culture and a deepened sense of connection to my classmates. On our last night in Tokyo, 20 alums joined us for a farewell dinner. As they shared stories of their own student-led treks and reminisced on their times in Hanover, I was reminded of the power of Tuck’s close-knit community even across international borders.

Fiona Bowen T’24 is from Summit, NJ. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2018 with a major in Mechanical Engineering. Before Tuck, Fiona worked as a consultant at Bain & Company in New York City.

Charlie Jersey T’24

Our second stop, Kyoto, offered up a stark contrast from the hyper-modern cityscape of Tokyo. Thin, twisting alleyways lined with izakayas were mixed with lantern-lit temples, as well as the wide streets required of a modern student city. Though the group tour brought fantastic tourist sites—trains through a monkey-laden valley, busy shrines literally covered in gold—the real highlights came when we split once again into smaller groups.

One group of Tuckies, while trying on traditional kimonos, ended up on the local news (and the camera rolls of plenty of Japanese tourists). Another visited a local high school and became celebrities in their own right, though on a much smaller and more personal scale. As usual, calling the food merely a highlight does it a disservice—it spanned a wider range of experience than I had previously thought possible. One group indulged in crème brûlée doughnuts so tasty that someone asked about becoming a franchisee; as if to offer a direct counterpoint, the next day we sampled a traditional monastic lunch that was intentionally bland so as not to “arouse any passions.” Day trips to nearby locations like Osaka (sumo and whisky) and Nara Park (temples and bowing deer) capped our time in Japan’s ancient but buzzing former capital.

If Kyoto and Tokyo were opposite cities, Hiroshima was a third point on the triangle. We began by walking around the hypocenter of the atomic bomb site, which has since been restored as a monument to peace worldwide. The message of peace was hammered home by the nearby museum detailing the events of the explosion. What followed, therefore, felt like being reborn from the horrors into a kind of Eden: we breezed through Hiroshima’s beachy streets to a ferry, which shipped us past a cherry-red floating Torii gate to Miyajima Island¹.

The island, designated one of Japan’s three most beautiful places by a 15th-century poet, lived up to its billing. Friendly deer nuzzled us as we peered through the floating Torii gate, sniffed our way towards stands selling deep-fried oysters, and hiked through lush woods up the 1500-foot mountain at the center of the island (getting plenty lost along the way).

If it were possible to be on a honeymoon with 70 business school students, this would be the place. After a day there, we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) back past Mount Fuji to Tokyo, where we split up to get in all sorts of trouble—between dipping ramen, katsudon, and fresh-off-the-boat sushi, we had more than enough energy to support all the walking we did through Tokyo’s incredibly diverse neighborhoods. A final send-off night featured traditional Kabuki performances from Japanese Tuck alumni and less-traditional karaoke performances from current Tuckies; Japan truly can’t stop mixing the old with the new.

Charlie Jersey T’24 is from Westport, CT. He graduated from Williams College in 2018 with majors in chemistry and German. Prior to matriculating at Tuck, he worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, specializing in sustainability and the energy transition.

[1] Of course, Jima means “island” in Japanese, so saying Miyajima Island is a bit like saying Chai tea.

Sunakshi Wadhwa T’24 recently published Those Type of Women: a collection of original memoirs of diverse women navigating careers, love, sexuality, and beauty standards. Wadhwa’s goal was to create further empathy between people from different backgrounds through the medium of authentic storytelling.

We sat down with her to chat about her vision for the project, the publishing process, and what advice she has for her younger self.

What sparked the initial idea for this book?
I am a proud feminist and believe in empowering everyone to unshackle their lives from gendered expectations. Having actively defied most expectations of a traditional Indian woman, I know first-hand how freeing yet difficult the process of empowerment is. However, the version of feminism that I saw in popular media was shallow, aggressive, and polarizing. In 2020, an Indian series was released that was originally created to share women’s stories but, in an attempt to gain the attention of the mass media, ended up depicting hyper-glamorized, exaggerated, and polarizing stories of women. I could not relate to the stories of these women, and when I discussed it with my friends, they too shared the same frustration of not seeing their real stories depicted in popular media. One negative repercussion of the series was that it further polarized an already divided society, and most importantly, it further distracted from the real stories, challenges, and struggles that women face in our gendered society.

As a passionate, ambitious, and stereotype-defying woman, I have faced and continue to face a lot of struggles to have a seat on the table, to have my voice heard, and to be treated with respect. We are all socialized by societies whose rules were formed by a select few, and in my perspective, the only way we can break through these societal barriers is by encouraging empathy by sharing honest, authentic, and vulnerable stories so that people realize that we are all more similar than different. Therefore, I decided to take things into my own hands and gathered friends, and friends of friends, to write honest, authentic, and vulnerable stories of what it really means to be a 20-something-year-old woman. The book is a collection of individual unnamed stories of each woman navigating career, love and sexuality, beauty standards, and the highs and lows of the journey we call life. The group consists of six diverse women who are extraordinarily ordinary, who have lived in more than eight countries and countless cities, have studied in India, the USA, the UK, and France, and have worked in the corporate, not-for-profit, and government sectors.

Can you tell us a bit more about the process? How did you connect with all of these women? What were some of the challenges or barriers you came up against between ideation and publication?
The vision of the project was to create a thought-provoking book that evoked empathy by sharing honest, vulnerable, and authentic stories. We were able to achieve this by creating a process that was inclusive, empowering, encouraging, and grounded in reflection. The biggest challenge was that we were all non-writers who were trapped in different geographies (and time zones!) and were juggling the intense demands of our “normal” lives during the pandemic, in addition to writing the book. However, we all shared a common vision and that gave us the fuel to sustain our fire for three long years.

To overcome these challenges and empower a group of diverse, non-writer acquaintances to write honest, vulnerable, and effective stories, I created a process that instilled ownership, normalized learning, and above all, created a space of belongingness. To encourage ownership, I actively incorporated the team’s input on our overall project goal and aspirations, to give their respective ambitions a platform. This collaborative problem-solving united everyone on a common path and enriched my original vision.

Additionally, I created meaningful opportunities for contribution, in addition to writing, for all the group members, based on their individual interests, skills, and strengths. For example, a subset of us participated in writing workshops and trained the entire team on effective storytelling, a subset with strong grammatical skills chose to edit the manuscript, etc.

To normalize learning, I instituted multiple problem-solving sessions in the process so that we would be able to discuss all aspects of our stories and receive and share feedback from our individual and diverse perspectives. We leveraged the wisdom and opinion of the crowd of writers to create stories that were easy to understand across cultures and were impactfully written. Each story has gone through at least five rounds of revisions, and each team member has given feedback on each story included in the book.

Creating a positive space of belongingness was the most important yet one of the most difficult tasks. Being a minority in traditional corporate settings has taught me that diversity does not always translate to inclusiveness. Hence, I designed dedicated, non-output time to build a community in which everyone was encouraged to be vulnerable, honest, and supportive. The strength of this comfort enabled our stories to be more thoughtful and vulnerable. We witnessed multiple life events during the past three years including graduate school acceptances/failures, marriages, birthdays, anniversaries, job changes, and mental health episodes, in addition to dealing with the stresses of Covid-19 but we had never felt more supported. We have only interacted virtually, but our bonds are as strong as steel.

Was jumping into this space outside your comfort zone? Did you feel any imposter syndrome during the process and, if so, how did you handle it?
100%. Overcoming external challenges was a lot easier than identifying and overcoming internal challenges, such as dealing with imposter syndrome—individually as a writer and as a leader. The majority of the writers come from a natural or social science background with limited to no previous experience in creative writing. We all had doubts about our writing abilities and even doubted that anyone would be interested in reading our stories. It was uncomfortable to actively think about our most vulnerable moments, and to have the courage to relive those moments while writing our stories, and knowing that our friends, family, and strangers will read about intimate details of our lives. Despite these challenges, the hope that sharing our stories could inspire others, and make them feel like they were not alone gave us the courage to overcome our fears and challenges. Additionally, I am very grateful for the wonderful team of women who supported each other by sharing constructive feedback with kindness, encouraged each other to become the best version of their writer-selves, and created a safe space for everyone to experiment to grow.

This was my first experience leading a project end to end. It was especially challenging because I was leading in a space that was not in my comfort zone and managing my peers and friends. It was an important learning experience that taught me three key lessons:

1. The most important “make-or-break” factor of any project is the team you choose.
2. Perfectionism is the biggest barrier to taking risks and achieving dreams.
3. A successful leader must have the courage to make difficult yet important decisions and balance efficiency and kindness to convert their vision into reality.

I am extremely grateful for the team I had that helped ease many roadblocks we faced on our path, and for my incredibly supportive family who have always believed in me more than I have.

What surprised you most about the publishing process?
How difficult it is, and how broken the publishing process is! There are so many people who have great stories to share but don’t have the right network or resources to help them shine. Unless you are a celebrity or influential figure, it is really hard to get in contact with the right people. The most important thing in publishing is to market yourself unapologetically, and to be patient to persevere through multiple rejections and setbacks.

What does “authentic storytelling” mean to you?
Authentic storytelling is storytelling that is uncensored, reflective, and vulnerable so that the stories and characters leap out of the page as real human beings, raw and beautifully flawed.

“Authentic storytelling is storytelling that is uncensored, reflective, and vulnerable so that the stories and characters leap out of the page as real human beings, raw and beautifully flawed.”

Sometimes when you look at yourself in the mirror your perspective is clouded by your opinions and thoughts about yourself, and having an independent perspective from someone else who is looking at the same image can help you see a better image of yourself. We had the benefit of having a group of friends, or acquaintances-turned-friends, who had lived through the experiences we were writing about to be able to push each other to share incidents from a balanced perspective. We were each other’s independent eyes, holding each other accountable for sharing our authentic stories.

One section of the book is “Letters to Our Younger Selves.” What would you say to your younger self?
I would reiterate the lessons I shared to my younger self in the book but updated based on lessons learned in business school:

1. Approach life from an abundance mindset and not a scarcity mindset (best piece of advice shared with me by a fellow T’24), to take intelligent risks, and to push yourself out of your comfort zone in order to learn and get closer to achieving your dreams, however crazy or unattainable they might seem. No one is successful overnight, it takes a lot of time, effort, and experimentation. Hence the only way we can actually learn and learn to learn is by adopting a growth mindset, being as comfortable with our mistakes and failures as we are with successes, celebrating small wins, and being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
2. The definition of success, as with everything in life, is “work in progress.” Success is happiness, defined by what you value and prioritize in life, which will change as your context changes. Since the name of the game is change, adopt a growth and positive mindset to make the most out of all the lemons that life throws at you to make lemonade, lemon dessert, or lemon candy.
3. Surround yourself with positive, authentic, and empowering people who are committed to helping each other out as wise problem-solvers and pillars of support and encouragement during your shared happy and sad times. Be grateful and unapologetically share your appreciation for your wonderful family and friends.
4. You cannot operate with an empty tank to be your authentic self and the version of leader you envisage to be, so prioritize self-love, self-care, and invest in your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Be kind to yourself, because if you are not, you can never truly be kind to others.
5. Have faith in the universe, and yourself, as it will enable you to be grateful, and grounded during the happy days, and hopeful and positive during the sad days. Life is a collection of random happenstances, and how you make sense of them is in your control. Having faith helps smooth out the rollercoaster ride that is life.

You’ve mentioned you hope people walk away from this book feeling more empathetic to those around them. As you go about life, where do you see the most amount of empathy and the least? Where can we as humans most improve in this space?
Interestingly, I think we are most empathetic to people who are more similar to us than to people who seem to be different from us. I hypothesize that this is because it is easier to imagine ourselves in the shoes of people who look like us than to imagine ourselves in the shoes of people who seem very different. For example if your shoe size is a 7, you can attempt to fit your foot in a shoe size 6 or 8 but it’s much harder to fit your foot in a shoe size 10 or 11.

Authentic storytelling is so important so that we can all be open, honest, and vulnerable with each other to share slivers of life to realize that beneath our superficial differences, we all experience the same basic emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, and fear. I really loved the River of Life exercise that we all did during Tuck Launch, as it provides a common language and a safe space to encourage people to share their honest, authentic, and vulnerable stories.

“We can all improve by converting the call-out culture into a call-in culture, giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and taking the courageous step to connect with people who seem different than us in an intentional, vulnerable, and inclusive manner.”

We can all improve by converting the call-out culture into a call-in culture, giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and taking the courageous step to take the initiative to connect with people who seem different than us in an intentional, vulnerable, and inclusive manner.

How has your Tuck experience been so far? What advice can you share with prospective MBA students, especially women?
As cliche as it sounds, Tuck has been a transformative experience that I am grateful for every single day, including sunny, rainy, snowy, and gloomy days. Early on during Tuck Launch, Professor Finkelstein inspired the foundation of my business school approach by sharing his three takeaways on leadership:

1. “Change is your friend.”
2. “Learning is your strategy.”
3. “Self-awareness is your superpower.”

I took his suggestion of thinking of business school as a laboratory to build a toolkit to create the muscle of learning by embracing failure, adapting to change with a growth mindset, and consistently baking in time and space to reflect to build self-awareness and practice self-love. I have actively put this toolkit to practice by signing up to do things, engaging with people in my unique way, and taking risks outside of my comfort zone. It has not always been rosy, but I am very grateful to have wonderful friends, faculty, and staff along this journey who actively help me problem-solve to help me progress in my journey of becoming my version of an ideal leader. I have cried happy and sad tears with my Tuck friends and we have supported each other through sunny, foggy, and stormy days.

Coming to business school was a conscious decision to invest in myself as a leader, and I am grateful I chose Tuck because of its commitment to co-invest in us to shape us to be wise, decisive, and if I may add “Tuck-nice,” leaders who are efficient yet kind and empathetic.

Therefore, my advice to prospective MBA students is to be crystal clear about their intention to attend business school, to choose an institution that will be their partner and enable and empower them to achieve these intentions/vision, and to enter business school with an open mindset to experiment, push beyond perceived limits, and to embrace all the learning opportunities, however difficult they might be.

Most people come to business school to learn but as overachievers struggle to not be the smartest or most talented person in the room. Be comfortable with the knowledge of being a work in progress, learning as much as you would like to teach your peers, and practicing self-love as you go through two years of difficult yet necessary transformation to become the best leader you can imagine.

Sunakshi Wadhwa T’24 is originally from Chandigarh, India but has lived in 14 cities across five countries (India, China, USA, Saudi Arabia, Philippines). She graduated from Macalester College (MN, USA) with a B.A. in economics. Post-graduation, she joined McKinsey & Company starting in the Minneapolis office and transitioning into Gurgaon, India office. At McKinsey, she worked across a wide range of industries, including consumer, retail, and banking; across business functions such as strategy, implementation, and due diligence; and across traditional and non-traditional projects like Generation India and McKinsey Global Institute. After McKinsey, Sunakshi joined Southeast Asia’s leading e-commerce player, Shopee, in the Philippines. At Tuck Sunakshi is a co-chair of the Tech club and the South Asian Business Association (SABA), and a Next 50 and Non-profit Board fellow.

Set amidst the sun-soaked shores of the Sinai Peninsula in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, COP27 demonstrated both trials and triumphs in the global effort to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Through the generous support of Tuck, I was fortunate to spend a week observing negotiations among the parties, participating in discussions held by national delegations the world over, and jockeying for terrible free coffee between events.

Progress at the conference toward arresting the most catastrophic effects of climate change was imperfect but impactful. For the first time, developed nations agreed to provide a fund for climate-related damages. According to the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research, the average American produces more than 150 times more emissions each year than the average Ethiopian. And yet, developing countries—who are least prepared to weather the impacts of drought, famine, and extreme weather events—are those who bear the brunt of climate-related events. The fund for damages is a vital step in the right direction for climate equity.

What was less exciting was the seeming death of the fight to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the level at which heat stress, species die-off, and massive increases in poverty, among a litany of other effects, is expected. While averting emissions required to achieve the 1.5°C level might be technically feasible, COP27 has shown that it is politically untenable. And yet, there are still many reasons to be hopeful.

I was pleased to see the rightfully expanded role that indigenous groups were given at COP, not just in badges, but in actual space on the floor and at the podium. According to the UNFCC, indigenous peoples safeguard an estimated 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. We simply cannot afford to exclude them from the conversation. In one particularly touching moment, I observed two indigenous men, one from Brazil and one from Peru, exchange greetings and expressions of solidarity with one another in Portuguese and Spanish, respectively.

I was also thrilled to experience a true coming together of people across nationalities, ethnicities, religions, and the many other things that so often divide us. The lightning-fast development of the MRNA Covid-19 vaccine has shown us what is possible when the collective ingenuity of humanity is united in a common purpose. While the fight for 1.5°C might be politically untenable, every tenth of a degree of warming that we do prevent will avert the suffering of millions. No country alone can change the path that our planet is currently on. Only by coming together can we find the solutions we need.

Look for what’s missing. As someone passionate about decarbonizing the built environment—which accounts for nearly 40 percent of global emissions—I was underwhelmed by the conversation (or lack thereof) on reducing operational and embodied carbon. As Europe faced an energy crisis this winter, we found that simple solutions like electric heat pumps are key to both energy security and a decarbonized electrical grid and yet we are still overly reliant on fossil fuels. This conference motivated me in my passion for decarbonizing the built environment and to do what I can to bring that conversation to the fore.

Focus on what’s important. One of the most impactful days of my experience was my last full day in Sharm where I had the privilege to dive in Ras Muhammad National Park, a 480 km² marine park protecting some of the most vibrant coral reefs in the Red Sea, and for that matter, the world. Over the course of three dives, I took in the splendor of more marine life than I have ever seen in my more than fifteen years as a certified diver. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the corals for the most part had been spared the bleaching that has afflicted almost every reef the world over. The day was a timely reminder of just how much is at risk. The World Wildlife Foundation estimates that we are losing between 1,000 and 10,000 times more species than the natural extinction rate. I can only hope that one day my children will be able to take in the same sense of wonder that I had that day in Ras Muhammad.

Don’t lose hope. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 stands to catalyze the most significant investment in clean sources of energy the U.S. has yet seen. And among my Tuck classmates, there is a feverish desire to find new and innovative solutions to arrest and maybe even turn back the catastrophic impacts that we are already starting to see. There is an opportunity to create a better, more sustainable world in every industry, not just the ones associated with climate tech. I am hopeful for the impacts that my Tuck classmates and other graduates of MBA programs will be able to drive in working towards this goal.

I am sincerely grateful to the Center for Business, Government & Society and the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability & Innovation for supporting our journey to COP27. Gratitude to Hannah Payson, April Salas, Tracy Bach, and Madeleine Booth for facilitating these wonderful experiences.

Rob Leet T’24, an incoming Real Estate Club co-chair, reflects on revitalizing the Real Estate Trek, which recently took place for the first time since 2019. 40 students traveled to eight firms in Boston to connect with Tuck alumni and learn more about breaking into the industry.

What motivated you to revitalize the Real Estate Trek?
Breaking into commercial real estate is tough. The recruiting process is “just-in-time” recruiting, which means that firms only hire when or if they see a need—and most firms delay their hiring until late in the spring term when most MBAs have a summer internship or full-time job already lined up. So, in real estate recruiting, there is a higher risk of waiting until springtime, and one constantly deals with peer pressure to find a job in an industry that has an earlier and more structured recruiting process.

The process of breaking into real estate is extremely networking-intensive and relationship-based. Most opportunities in the industry come from word-of-mouth and are not posted online. Therefore, forming strong relationships and building a robust network in the industry is key.

As a club, we thought organizing an all-day career trek in Boston would be the best way for students to tackle the unpredictable nature of real estate recruiting. They would get to develop meaningful connections in-person, learn from knowledgeable practitioners in the field, and plant a “seed” for building a network in the industry. We also wanted to build awareness about the industry and expose students to the wide variety of roles, property types, and investment strategies that are out there. Because real estate is an underrepresented industry at Tuck and at most MBA programs (where 2–3 percent of each year’s graduating class usually enters the field), we wanted to show our peers that the industry is so much more than one would normally make it out to be.

Can you tell us a bit more about the participants and agenda?
We initially marketed the event to both Tuck students and Dartmouth undergrads and were astounded by the amount of interest we received—over 90 students from the Dartmouth and Tuck communities were interested in attending. Actual turnout amounted to around 40 students (20 from Tuck and 20 from Dartmouth), but this number was still higher than what prior real estate treks experienced pre-COVID (which ranged from 10–15 students total).

We originally planned to have five company visits throughout the day. However, due to the large student turnout and limited capacity of several firms, we had to increase the number of visits to eight and split the group in two for the first half of the day. The companies that we visited included Beacon Capital Partners, Related Beal, Long Wharf Capital, Cabot Properties, Leggat McCall Properties, Arx Urban, Longfellow Real Estate Partners, and AEW Capital Management. At the end of the last visit, we hosted a Tuck/Dartmouth alumni happy hour at Samuel Adams Taproom Brewery. It was a great time! Many of the alums enjoyed reconnecting with their classmates as well.

Was there a particular highlight from the day that has stuck with you?
For me, there were two highlights: the visit to Longfellow Real Estate Partners, hosted by Jamie Peschel D’99, T’06, and the visit to AEW Capital Management, hosted by Manny del Campo T’19.

At the Longfellow visit, Jamie’s presentation not only touched on his work, but also offered general advice for finding happiness in life, and important lessons learned throughout his career. He started off the presentation by mentioning that he read every student’s resume (40 resumes!). He also spoke highly about liberal arts education at Dartmouth and the general management curriculum at Tuck, both of which he found incredibly valuable in bettering the world of real estate. He went on to describe the struggles that he experienced in trying to break into the industry, and finally, how he founded his own firm—which has since become the nation’s largest privately held life science real estate investor.

At the AEW visit, Manny put together a panel of three senior executives at the firm, including AEW’s chief investment officer and head of private equity, its COO, and its director and head of retail acquisitions. The panelists offered unique insights on the macro economy, the current state of real estate investment, and their expectations for 2023. Following the panel, Manny invited 20 of his colleagues from different lines of business to have breakout networking sessions. As opposed to what’s known as a “circle of death” conversation that’s typical in banking and consulting recruiting (where 10+ students circle around one company representative), the conversation ratio of students to AEW employees was excellent, at 2 to 1. This ratio allowed for much more intimate conversations. I appreciated Manny’s effort to convince so many of his colleagues and senior leaders to come in on a Friday afternoon—normally a work-from-home day at AEW.

What has your experience with Tuck alumni in the real estate industry been like?
While the quantity of Tuck students entering the real estate industry is small each year relative to other industries, the quantity of alumni certainly does not translate to the quality of alumni. I have found that Tuck real estate alums pull extra hard to help us land a career in the industry. This is likely because they know how hard it is to break into the industry given they went through the same process. The alums go out of their way to spend extra time in our networking conversations to help us understand industry trends, lingo, and develop technical skills. They offer high-quality referrals and introductions to other key contacts in the industry, which helps to grow our network. The alumni are also incredibly passionate about what they do and are very successful, which is an added bonus.

How do you hope to grow the trek and Real Estate Club during your time at Tuck? How has Tuck helped in this endeavor?
What I have enjoyed most about Tuck is its flexibility in supporting my interest in commercial real estate, which is not a common MBA career path. For example, another classmate and I are currently working with our real estate professor and an advisor at the Center for Private Equity & Venture Capital (CPEVC) on an independent study project. The project involves learning how large institutional funds analyze ESG-related real estate today, and how to incentivize institutional capital into more real estate ESG investments moving forward.

Apart from personal studies, one of my main goals at Tuck is to grow its real estate program. I am currently in discussions with two classmates and the CPEVC to organize a Real Estate Series for the 2023-24 school year. We are planning to invite Tuck and Dartmouth alums to campus to share their insight and advice about working in the industry. The visits may also include a mix of coffee chats, real estate case studies and modeling workshops, small group dinners, property sector overviews, moderated panel discussions, investment strategies, and the like. I am quite thankful for the partnership with CPEVC and how supportive the center has been in rallying behind our effort to grow the real estate program.

In addition to the Real Estate Series, I am working with the undergraduate real estate club and several Dartmouth alums to organize an all-day real estate conference at Tuck for the upcoming fall term. The conference will have multiple panel discussions throughout the day. We are still in the early stages of brainstorming but are very excited about this development.

The Tuck Real Estate Club is also already working on its next career trek for the 2023 fall term. As opposed to the Boston trek, the fall trek will be an institutional real estate trek to NYC. The NYC trek will focus on larger private equity “mega-funds” and other institutional players involved in commercial real estate investment and development.

Lastly, Michael Schwarze T’24, my fellow incoming Real Estate Club co-chair, and I want to bring diversity to the forefront of our Real Estate Series conversations next year. Commercial real estate remains one of the least diverse industries in the U.S. today, with over 90% of industry participants being white and male, and at the executive level, the number increases to 95%. We are planning to collaborate with Black Students at Tuck (BSAT) and Women in Business (WIB) for the 2023-24 school year to discuss this issue and ways to improve the industry moving forward.

Rob Leet T’24 is a first-year student at Tuck with experience in real estate and middle market commercial banking. Rob grew up in Seattle, majored in Norwegian and Economics at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and worked in Sacramento and Seattle after graduating.

In his free time Rob enjoys hiking, skiing, swimming, and playing baseball. Outside of staying active, Rob likes to play board games, perform karaoke, play ping pong, and learn about coffee and espresso.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Tuck recently welcomed Chrishon Lampley, founder of Love Cork Screw and alumna of Tuck Diversity Business Programs, back to campus for a fun wine tasting event and question and answer session. A SheaMoisture fellow, Lampley also completed the Diversity Entrepreneurship Collaboration Program, which pairs entrepreneurs with Tuck MBA students.

We sat down with Lampley to learn more about her business Love Cork Screw, her experience with Tuck’s executive education programs, and her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, especially women of color.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your business, Love Cork Screw? What made you want to start this business?

Love Cork Screw is a wine brand that was founded 10 years ago by yours truly, as an African-American woman, who felt the need to represent the underrepresented space in the wine industry. The brand offers six varietals of wine with catchy and fun names such as ”Head Over Heels“ Riesling and ”Good Times, Good Friends“ Pinot Grigio. These wines appeal to a diverse audience and are sold in major retailers throughout the country. The desire to provide representation and a unique wine experience led to my creation of Love Cork Screw.

You recently visited Tuck for a special event in honor of Women’s History Month. Thank you again for joining us. How do you think the event turned out? Did you have any particularly interesting conversations with students?

It was an enjoyable experience, and I think the event went well. It’s always fascinating to receive feedback and a fresh perspective when your product has been in stores for a while. One of my favorite conversations was with a student who thanked me for including the nutritional label on the back of the bottle. It was especially rewarding to hear this feedback since I had recently added the feature to cater to the younger generation of health-conscious wine drinkers.

I understand this wasn’t your first time at Tuck. In April 2022, you attended Building a Successful Diverse Business, one of the Tuck Diversity Business Programs, as a SheaMoisture Fellow. What were you hoping to get out of your experience at Tuck? Do you think you reached your objectives? How was the experience overall?

As an entrepreneur, I had a truly remarkable experience that meant a lot to me. It broadened my perspective and opened up countless paths to success. Since then, I’ve been diligently implementing everything I learned. I understand that progress takes time, but I’m using all of the information and ideas to propel my business to the next level. Additionally, being surrounded by other business owners provided me with a great source of motivation and energy to succeed. I would jump at the chance to do it again.

You also recently completed our Diversity Entrepreneurship Collaboration Program, where you worked with our MBA students directly to take advantage of marketing opportunities around Gen Z. Can you tell us more about the experience of working with MBA students? How do you plan to use what they’ve worked on in Love Cork Screw’s future?

Working with the MBA students and entrusting them with obtaining feedback from the younger wine drinkers was an amazing experience. It was like having a high-end, in-depth case study completed without any financial burden on my part. The students brought fresh, new ideas to the table that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. Their insights helped me understand how to better appeal to younger consumers and adjust my marketing strategies accordingly.

As I reviewed their findings, I felt a renewed sense of excitement for the future of my business. I am eager to put their ideas into action on our website and social media platforms to attract and engage a wider audience. Their input will be invaluable in expanding our reach and cultivating a loyal following among young wine enthusiasts.

Overall, working with the MBA students was a valuable experience that gave me an opportunity to learn from a talented group of individuals and gain a deeper understanding of my target audience. I am grateful for the insight they provided and look forward to seeing how their ideas can help take my business to new heights.

What would you say your top takeaway has been from your time at Tuck?

Attending Tuck left a lasting impression on me, but the most significant takeaway was the reassuring feeling that comes with knowing you’re doing things right. As someone who occasionally experiences imposter syndrome, it was incredibly affirming to receive honest, kind feedback from the students. Seeing their genuine reactions to my work was absolutely priceless. Their encouragement and support helped me overcome any doubts or insecurities I may have had and left me feeling motivated to continue pursuing my goals with confidence.

What advice do you have for emerging entrepreneurs, especially women of color who hope to pursue a business venture?

As a woman entrepreneur and a woman of color, I have learned that you must be prepared to work twice as hard to achieve your goals, and that’s perfectly okay. Despite the challenges you may face, your perseverance and determination will inspire others to pursue their own dreams. In fact, inspiring others may become your true purpose. So keep pushing forward, stay focused on your vision, and never let anyone tell you that you can’t achieve success. Your hard work and dedication will pay off in ways you may not have imagined, and your example will help pave the way for future generations of women entrepreneurs and women of color.

Looking ahead, any exciting updates you can offer on your business life and Love Cork Screw?

There are several exciting updates to share, including the upcoming appearance of Love Cork Screw on national television and our ongoing collaboration with major brands such as Stella Artois. It’s incredibly rewarding to see our business gaining traction and recognition on a larger scale. We are grateful for these opportunities and look forward to continuing to grow our brand and expand our reach.

Learn more about Love Cork Screw.

Learn more about Tuck Diversity Business Programs.

John Minderman T’23 shares how his journey from engineering to Tuck deepened his understanding of the energy industry and ultimately led him to revive the Tuck Renewable Energy Finance Case Competition.

I consider the transition of our society from fossil-fuels dependent to net-zero to be of critical importance, while at the same time being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. My thesis going into my undergraduate program was that this issue needed technology development, so I got my engineering degree and spent five years designing and deploying first-of-their-kind advanced nuclear and battery storage projects. However, through my experiences, I began to realize that to meet our net-zero goals we need deployment of mostly existing technologies, and the biggest barrier to that deployment is finance.

Enter the Tuck School of Business, where I’ve developed a deeper understanding of the theories behind finance and its industry applications from discussions with industry practitioners through the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability & Innovation. I also developed a more practical understanding from interning at an impact venture capital firm and doing power and renewables investment banking at Goldman Sachs over the summer. These experiences gave me the perspective of both early-stage and late-stage investors as well as the applications of that finance. Going into my second year at Tuck, I wanted to find a way to synthesize how I think about financing the energy transition.

In July, I approached April Salas, Executive Director of the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability & Innovation, with the idea of revamping Tuck’s energy finance case competition after its COVID-induced hiatus. The idea was to invite teams from top business schools around the world to recommend a finance fund structure and appropriate sustainable investment opportunities. To make this happen, we collaborated with a great team of sponsors including Generate, Marathon Capital, and New Energy Capital, as well as fellow MBA classmates Steve Sanford, Yuka Sugimori, Annette Jatto, Claire Kadeethum, Ryan Mooney, and Tobi Okpala. I can’t thank them enough for making it possible!

The competition was a great success! We received applications and deliverables from top MBA Schools, and ultimately, four teams advanced to the final round held in person at Tuck where each team presented their fund structure and investment thesis to an incredible set of judges.

I was so pleased by the questions and discussions that we had between students and judges. A notable discussion was around a proposal to use a venture capital fund to invest in energy storage project opportunities, to which the judges asked: “How is a 30%+ cost of capital additional to this space?” These exchanges showed that the case competition achieved its goal of helping MBA students understand that good finance structures and good opportunities aren’t necessarily compatible—real innovation requires creativity to apply the right structure to the right opportunities.

Overall, organizing this case competition was not only a great learning experience but it was also a great opportunity to meet fantastic people committed to creating a positive impact in the world. I’m excited to see what next year’s edition of the Tuck Renewable Energy Finance Challenge brings!

Prior to Tuck, John Minderman T'23 worked for five years doing engineering and project development for utilities, electric generators, advanced nuclear startups, and battery storage developers. He is passionate about accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy by deploying gigaton-scale financing for clean energy. While at Tuck, is director of the Tuck Social Venture Fund, and interned with an impact VC company and a lithium battery recycler. After Tuck he will be going to NYC to work on Power & Renewables in the Natural Resources Group at Goldman Sachs. 

Spring is a special time here at Tuck, when we welcome admitted students to Hanover to discover for themselves what makes the Tuck MBA experience so distinct. We asked a current student and a Tuck partner to share more on choosing an MBA program and why Tuck was the right fit for them.

MEET GREG JACOBSON T’24 AND MELISSA ROTHENBERG TP’24

Greg T’24: I’m originally from Australia, having moved to the U.S. in 2019 to pursue opportunities abroad and be with my partner Melissa. I have six years’ experience as a technology consultant, specializing in project and deployment management, as well as business development at Deloitte, where I started immediately after my graduation from UNSW. Now at Tuck, I’m looking for a summer internship in tech, whilst also serving as the co-chair of the Jewish Students Association and as an Associate at the Centre for Digital Strategies. Outside of that, I love cooking, snowboarding, and travel (I’ve been to 65 countries).

Melissa TP’24: I grew up just outside of Washington, DC, but made a home in Boston after moving up for my undergrad, which included a study-abroad semester in Australia (where I met Greg). After a couple of years working, I finished my nursing degree and now work at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in their Nurse Residency Program, which allows me to keep learning while I work, and be in Hanover with Greg and our cat Beau. I love baking and crafting, and run a small candle business from our kitchen.

Why MBA?
Greg T’24: With almost seven years of professional experience under my belt, I was coming to a number of crossroads all-at-once. From a career standpoint, I felt like my career path needed some invigoration that could only come with the skills and opportunities that come with an MBA. As a newer people manager with a growing number of direct reports, I wanted to learn how to manage teams and businesses the best way I could. And as I looked towards my goals longer term, I recognized major gaps in my knowledge that an MBA would allow me to learn and accelerate my ambitions.

“Having a partner that would also be welcomed into the community was also a major consideration for me, and I am continually impressed and amazed at the way that TPs are so welcomed and engaged with the Tuck experience.”

—Greg Jacobson T’24

Why Tuck?
Greg T’24: For me, it was the community. When I started telling people I had been admitted to Tuck, I had seven alumni at my old company (whom I had never met before) immediately put time on my calendar to congratulate me and share their experiences. Tuckies reach out, they take the call, and they help. When arriving on campus, I was astounded at how generous everyone was with their time and spirit, which was exactly the community I was looking for. From an academic standpoint, Tuck’s fairly rigorous core curriculum was exactly what I needed to bring me back up to speed after seven years since undergrad and has a number of fascinating courses in a small cohort that I’m excited about. Having a partner that would also be welcomed into the community was also a major consideration for me, and I am continually impressed and amazed at the way that TPs are so welcomed and engaged with the Tuck experience.

Melissa TP’24: As early as ASW, I felt welcomed into the Tuck community, where I could have my own life within Tuck and not just be a plus-one. I have been fortunate to cultivate a group of friends (both Tuckies and TPs) from around the world that have become a wonderful support system in the Upper Valley. I also love that I’m able to participate in all the events and initiatives (even without Greg) so I can share in the fun of the community.

On ASW
Greg T’24: I had already signed my offer and paid my deposit before coming to ASW, so I was admittedly apprehensive about whether I had made the right decision. From the moment I walked in, I knew I had from the incredibly warm greetings from the T’23s and faculty. We were instantly welcomed into the community in a way that I had not experienced before—I met incredibly impressive, intelligent people who were kind, friendly and engaging. There was an undeniable energy in the air. I am still friends with people I met at ASW and it provided a wonderful preview into my time at Tuck to eliminate any potential jitters when starting out.

“I had every plan of staying in Boston and coming up on weekends, but seeing the community, the scenery, and the life I could lead up here with my Tuckie changed my mind.”

—Melissa Rothenberg TP’24

Melissa TP’24: ASW is where I decided to move to Hanover. I had every plan of staying in Boston and coming up on weekends, but seeing the community, the scenery, and the life I could lead up here with my Tuckie changed my mind. Seeing how Tuck and the community takes the TP experience so seriously was clear from the programming we had during the weekend that was separate to the students. All in all, the weekend was great fun and I was excited to see some familiar faces when we got back to Hanover when moving in.

Travelling to Denmark with 22 second-year Tuck students was a humbling and wonderful experience.

I am Danish and I am new to Tuck. Having these two worlds meet, greet, interact, and reflect upon each other’s obvious similarities and stark differences was an interesting and very powerful exercise for both me and the students. I can confidently say that we all learned a lot.

My storyline was simple in that I wanted to tease out the interplay between state, market, and people. Many of our visits were intended to shed light on the systemic construction of a small, democratic welfare state with a flat hierarchical structure. Everywhere we went, we were warmly welcomed, well fed, and met with a sincere pride in being Danish. But the Danish also brought an unafraid openness and curiosity around our perspectives, our questions, and any input we could offer.

“To me, the importance of a GIX is to expose ourselves to different sensibilities and cultures and to find the empathy within to deal with these differences, big and small. … We need to sharpen our ability to listen and critically reflect—with an open mind and a courageous heart.”

—Hanne Pico Larsen

To me, the importance of a GIX is to expose ourselves to different sensibilities and cultures and to find the empathy within to deal with these differences, big and small—to take what we can use from a foreign context, and develop new ideas and new sensibilities to fit our own purposes. We need to sharpen our ability to listen and critically reflect—with an open mind and a courageous heart. We were given exactly such an opportunity in Denmark, and we all embraced it. To some, it was also a deep immersion into a different culture, as they jumped into the icy Copenhagen Harbor with new friends from the Copenhagen Business School. Or skied down CopenHill, an urban waste-to-energy facility with its own ski slope. Others enjoyed warm candlelit indoor spaces, such as the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, to reflect on what we learned about work-life-balance, parental leave, five weeks of paid vacation per year, hygge, and happiness. No harm in being a bit existentialist—yes, Denmark is high on the list of happiest countries according to the Happiness Report.

We visited many companies including Novo Nordisk and Maersk, two of Denmark’s largest companies with an international profile. At both places we learned about, and debated, sustainability and a goal of a zero-waste tomorrow. At the Danish Business Authority, a governmental liaison between government and the Danish world of business, we heard about machine learning and reporting to EU. At ReD Associates, a niche, luxury, customer-centric consultancy using qualitative approaches and sensemaking, we got a different perspective on the business of consulting. We also visited Ulrick Schack T´94 at the biggest Danish media house and Alan Leventhal T´76, the American ambassador to Denmark.

I know that you would like to hear about my personal reflection, but I am not sure I can give a direct answer. The Denmark GIX evoked intangible feelings for me—ones of togetherness and of beauty in sharing an experience so intense. I am grateful for all the stories and feelings we gave room to share with each other, and I am grateful to have been part of this travelling Tuck team. I am forever proud to be both a Dane and a member of the Tuck community.

Read about the Denmark GIX from the students’ perspective.

Global Insight Expeditions (GIXs) help students develop cultural awareness, empathy for the thoughts and attitudes of local people, and agility to adapt their behavior to successfully navigate different business environments through structured reflection. Each course begins with classroom sessions on Tuck’s campus. Students then travel with one or two faculty members where they engage with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, community leaders, government officials, and local people from different walks of life.

Spring is a special time here at Tuck, when we welcome admitted students to Hanover to discover for themselves what makes the Tuck MBA experience so distinct. This year, Admitted Students Weekend (ASW) will be held April 13–16. We asked our ASW co-chairs to share more about themselves and ASW, why they chose to pursue an MBA, and what made them realize Tuck was the right business school for them.

MEET BETH BOLLINGER T’24

“Overall, Tuck has no equal when it comes to personal growth, community, and the alumni network, and I would recommend Tuck to any career-switcher. I have loved my first year here, and I can’t wait for what next year holds.”

About Me
In undergrad, I studied physics at Washington University in St. Louis. After spending my summers doing undergraduate research, I realized that academia wasn’t for me and began my career in industry at Epic, a healthcare software company in Wisconsin, doing a combination of software development and client project management. Then, I taught myself web programming and worked as a full-stack software engineer and team leader at the UW Credit Union, working on their online banking platform and cybersecurity. At Tuck, I am an Admitted Students Weekend co-chair, a Center for Digital Strategies associate, a Cheesemongers Club co-chair, and I enjoy participating in dance club, wine club, and games club events. This summer and post-Tuck, I’ll be a Digital Consultant at BCG in Boston. I live with my husband and our orange tabby cat, Juniper, and we are all loving the upper valley so far!

Why MBA?
Over the course of my career, I became fascinated with the larger organizational issues at play: How could our division be structured more effectively? Were we building the right kinds of software features for our market? How could we get more value from our partnerships? I wanted to pivot from a technical leader to a strategic leader, and I knew that I needed the knowledge, wisdom, and network an MBA would provide.

Why Tuck?
To change careers, I knew I not only needed to acquire knowledge, but to transform personally as well, so Tuck immediately captured my attention. I wanted to surround myself with kind and empathetic leaders who could show me how to inspire a team. Coming from physics and software engineering, I didn’t have much of a professional network in the business sphere, so I knew I needed a school with compassionate students and alumni to help me grow my network and build my confidence. The Center for Digital Strategies was also a huge draw, so I could continue pursuing my interests in technology throughout my MBA.

So far, Tuck has exceeded my hopes and expectations. The core curriculum has provided me with a comprehensive toolkit to approach the business world and answer the questions I came with. My peers are outstandingly talented individuals who are somehow so humble that I can be my imperfect self without fear of judgement. To date, I’ve always gotten responses when cold-emailing Tuck students and alumni—every single time. Through 1-1 leadership coaching, I’ve analyzed my leadership triumphs and failures to date, and charted a course towards improving myself as a leader. Overall, Tuck has no equal when it comes to personal growth, community, and the alumni network, and I would recommend Tuck to any career-switcher. I have loved my first year here, and I can’t wait for what next year holds.

On ASW
I applied and signed in Round 1, so for me ASW was a victory lap! The opportunity to meet my future classmates and celebrate with them was the perfect kickoff to my Tuck journey. I also wanted to get a head start thinking about my summer internship, and ASW was a great way to learn more about the recruiting process and the two different industries I was considering (tech vs consulting). Finally, it was helpful to tour Hanover and start planning my housing in the upper valley. Overall, ASW was both a fun and informative experience!

MEET TOM FONTANA T’24

“Tuck is also a change of pace from what most people did before Tuck—the Upper Valley is the perfect place to reflect on where I’ve been and more importantly, where I want to go. The Tuck community has been everything I had hoped for and more.”

About Me
After graduating from Georgia Tech with a Chemical Engineering degree, I took a role in Operations with Polaris in Minneapolis. Working on both the manufacturing plants and the supply chain offices, I saw a wide variety of operations roles in a short time before settling in the Supplier Quality team. I then moved from the Powersports industry to the med device industry to get a different perspective on manufacturing before deciding to pursue my MBA and attend Tuck. At Tuck, I’m an avid skier, tripod enthusiast, and ASW co-chair. I will also be co-chairing the consulting club and the John Barleycorn Society (our beer club). This summer I’ll be heading to Chicago to work for BCG.

Why MBA?
Coming from an engineering background, I wanted to round out my skill set and get a better understanding of business outside of manufacturing. My role in Supply Chain was largely reactive, and I wanted to transition to a more strategic, big picture, and proactive career path and I saw the MBA as the best way to do that. Outside of the business skills, I also wanted to grow as a leader and my learnings in and out of the class at Tuck are helping me do that.

Why Tuck?
It was important to me to find a place where I could really build a community, and have that community be as invested in the MBA experience as I am. Tuck was the perfect place for that experience. The small class size appealed to me wanting to genuinely get to know my classmates and the rural setting meant we were in it together and not leaving school to other parts of a city after class. Tuck is also a change of pace from what most people did before Tuck—the Upper Valley is the perfect place to reflect on where I’ve been and more importantly, where I want to go. The Tuck community has been everything I had hoped for and more.

On ASW
Tuck is a unique MBA experience and the best way to understand what it’s like is to come and see it firsthand! My time at ASW was what convinced me to attend Tuck, because I genuinely enjoyed talking to everyone I met that weekend, and I knew these were the people I wanted as my classmates. It was also an opportunity for Tuck to show its commitment to the two year MBA program. The combination of the school and my peers, as well as just having a great weekend, convinced me Hanover was where I wanted to spend the next two years of my life.

MEET ALISON TILSON T’24

“In my first year at Tuck, I have learned that an MBA is as much a time of personal growth as it is of career growth and am excited that the friends I’m making here will be my network for the rest of my life.”

About Me
After graduating from Carleton College with a BA in economics, I moved back to New York City and spent my time before Tuck working in consulting at EY-Parthenon (EYP). At EYP, I worked predominantly in our supply chain practice, focusing on the Life Sciences industry and clients going through spin-offs and divestitures. I will be returning to EYP for my internship and post-Tuck, likely still working in supply chain (but potentially with a different industry focus). At Tuck, I am an Admitted Students Weekend co-chair, a member of the Personal Board of Advisors Pilot Program, and involved in Tripod Hockey, Ski Race League, and any and all other outdoor activities in the Upper Valley.

Why MBA?
Having attended a liberal arts college, I knew there were gaps in my business education that I felt an MBA could help me close. I wanted an MBA first to gain a foundational business knowledge that would prepare me for a career in business, but I also wanted to build a community of people at a similar stage in life to me that would support me in that career.

Why Tuck?
I chose Tuck because it offered the immersive MBA experience that I was looking for. When I came to campus, I felt immediately at ease with the kind people and wonderful community. The students here are interested not only in the academics that Tuck offers but also in getting to know one another and building the community that Tuck is known for. I felt that, as a student here, I would be able to find a community that cared about my development both in my career and as a person and that community would become my support system for the rest of my life. In my first year at Tuck, I have learned that an MBA is as much a time of personal growth as it is of career growth and am excited that the friends I’m making here will be my network for the rest of my life.

On ASW
Attending ASW helped me solidify that Tuck was the place that I wanted to spend the next two years. Coming to Hanover allowed me to not only meet amazing prospective and current students but also get a sense of what my life here would look like. All the different programming showed me what a Tuck experience would look like and talking to the prospective and current students made me see that I was making the right decision to spend my next two years here.

MEET EDMUND ONG T’24

“Community and Co-investment. As much as they seem to be buzzwords, living it now helps me understand how true those two pieces are at Tuck.”

About Me
I was born in Singapore but spent Middle and High school in Shanghai and Beijing. Then I returned to Singapore to serve in the Singapore National Police Force. After completion of my service, I attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada where I studied Chemical Engineering. Upon graduation, I briefly worked in the mining industry before joining Accenture Consulting in their Tech Strategy & Advisory Group. For my summer internship, I am headed to New York for investment banking.

Why MBA?
Coming from an engineering background and then jumping into consulting, I felt that some of the more finance/general skillsets are something I lacked. An MBA would help me gain those skills—whether it is understanding different finance models or general management skills. It is a place where I can explore new career options, try new courses, and meet people from different walks of life.

Why Tuck?
Community and Co-investment. As much as they seem to be buzzwords, living it now helps me understand how true those two pieces are at Tuck. Everyone at Tuck comes to be immersed in the program. Being away from the distractions of a city, where I can go into the outdoors with my classmates or hang out on campus creates an environment that puts community first. I cannot stress how valuable the co-investment piece is—from my classmates, the MBA program office, the faculty, and the staff. Every person on campus invests in this community to make it what it is—an experience that is truly personal, connected, and transformative.

On ASW
I was still deciding between different schools when I came to ASW. ASW really showed me the value proposition of Tuck—community and co-investment. There were many moments over the weekend where the current students went above and beyond to make sure I got the information I needed. Whether it’s helping explain a certain process, introductions to other students, or just making a new friend—ASW really opened my eyes to the possibilities that Tuck provided. It cemented my decision to come to Tuck!

Calvin Garay T’23, one of the Tuck Band co-chairs, shares highlights from his time in the band and what lessons he’ll take with him after Tuck.

What is The Tuck Band, for those who don’t know?

The Tuck Band is a Tuck club that’s organized by class year—there’s a band for the first-years (Supply & DaBand) and one for second-years (ManEc! at the Disco). We get together for informal practices pretty frequently and put on different types of concerts, so we can kind of plug into the Tuck social scene from a lot of different angles.

Tuck Band is an awesome way for aspiring musicians, lifelong musicians, or people who are more loosely interested to access music, get together, and collaborate with their classmates in a creative setting that’s welcoming and open.

What instrument do you play, and how long have you been playing?

I play electric guitar and have played it pretty much my entire life. I think by the time I was a toddler and could hold an object in my hand, my dad put a guitar in it. He’s a musician and he taught me. Whenever I’m home for the holidays, I value the chances to play music with him.

Anywhere I’ve lived, I’ve tried to join or create a band—be it in college, high school, or life post-college. The Tuck Band has honestly been the most rewarding musical experience of my life. I feel lucky to have met some of my classmates who are incredible musicians and we’ve been able to connect on an extremely deep level by playing music together and putting on high-energy shows for crowds ranging from 300 to 800 people. It’s been an amazing way to build relationships at Tuck; some people in the band will be my lifelong friends now. So, yeah, I feel lucky.

What is it like to play with and for your classmates?

It’s an amazing way to build meaningful relationships in a short amount of time. Music is intimate and emotional; you have to be vulnerable. You also have to be a team player. For example, if you’re a rhythm player, you must listen hard and build up whichever of your classmates is soloing to try to make them sound better. The team dynamics are fascinating, and we all get to share the reward of playing for our classmates.

We put in a lot of work, especially leading up to the show day. We’re all kind of putting our necks on the line, up on stage in front of our classmates; so, we want to do it well. But on show day, when things go well—and they always do—we get to bond over how great the feeling was and enjoy the shared success as friends, bandmates, and classmates. That aspect has been really incredible.

Has the band provided any lessons beyond music?

It’s been one of the most challenging and rewarding leadership experiences of my life, actually. It’s been really fulfilling to try to get the best out of our group of ~20 musicians, learning to navigate group dynamics, and bonding over a shared interest.

I’ve learned a lot about communication. I and the other musicians in the band have a lot of ideas floating around in our heads about which direction the show should go in, how we should play a particular song, etc. And it’s vital to express these ideas clearly to get buy-in. Our band is comprised of folks from all over the world, from all different musical backgrounds. Some come from jazz backgrounds, and others come from a cappella, electronica, blues rock, and beyond. We have about 10 different singers, a trumpet, a trombone, a saxophone, multiple guitars, conga drums, regular drums, keyboards, synths, and more.

How many shows do you play a year?

As many as we can! Playing in Raether Hall on campus is an awesome experience—it’s a beautiful common space with high ceilings. My parents came to the last show along with a bunch of other Tuck Band parents. We had a little roped-off VIP area with champagne for them.

Last year, we put on a great show for Admitted Students Weekend. Afterward, multiple people came up to us and said they were musicians and didn’t realize Tuck had this opportunity; they were excited to come to Tuck and join the band. So, we kind of have a joke in the band that we helped yield for the class of 2024 by putting on a great show.

We want to perform as much as we can because we love it, and our classmates seem to really enjoy it. It’s just a gratifying and creative experience for everybody involved.

Calvin is from Baltimore, MD, and is a proud Chilean American. He went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where he studied economics, Spanish, and finance and thoroughly enjoyed the Nashville live music scene. After living in NYC and Colorado, he’s now loving his life at Tuck and will be joining the tech industry as a PM, living in Miami. Calvin is passionate about music, soccer, nature, and dogs.

Madeleine Bothe, assistant director for the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability and Innovation and the Center for Business, Government & Society, reflects on her first time attending CERAWeek—an annual energy conference organized by S&P Global—and why the energy industry needs more Tuck MBAs.

There are so many reasons why attending CERAWeek should be part of your Tuck experience. This is just one of the opportunities that are open to Tuck students who opt to make energy, sustainability, and climate issues an important part of their career or personal goals during their Tuck experience. This annual conference takes place in the Hilton of Americas in Houston, Texas, and is organized by S&P Global after its acquisition of IHSMarkit and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). Over 5,000 delegates from over 90 different countries descend on Houston for five incredibly packed days of topics from traditional oil and gas, carbon markets, energy security, decarbonization, sustainability, tech, mobility, and so much more.

“The energy industry needs to take responsibility and lead the way.”

—H.E. Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology; UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change and COP28 President Designate; United Arab Emirates Minister of Industry & Advanced Technology

There were many highlights but the themes that came up included energy security, especially in the context of Europe’s gas supply, hydrogen, technology, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and what that means for business as well as new and existing energy and manufacturing infrastructure. Although it was fully apparent to me before, it has also never been so obvious to me that energy is not only an industry in and of itself but intersects with just about every other industry. For example, the IRA is a political proverbial “carrot” that will accelerate tech, cities, mobility, banking/finance, law, and so much more. It was stressed that for the energy transition to be successful, digital tech is necessary to cut low-hanging fruit emissions. The formula for the energy transition isn’t just one equation but hydrogen, in all its colorful forms, will help get us there and the infrastructure permitting is the biggest barrier. So my major conclusion? They need Tuck MBAs in energy now! Here’s why:

In all honesty, I have had the opportunity to attend CERAWeek before and have always declined because attending a global energy conference where the majority of attendees come from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Schneider Electric, SLB, Cheniere Energy, and ConocoPhillips was nothing short of intimidating. I am also one of those people who typically leans towards climate and sustainability events. But I leaned into this discomfort by practicing what I preach: you must learn about the whole energy and sustainability landscape if you want to make transformative decisions. There’s no better place to experience this than at CERAWeek. I hope I can share this experience with you in the future!

Weiran Zeng T’24 shares her favorite moments from the 2023 Lunar New Year celebrations at Tuck and reflects on her first year as a member of the Asia Business Club.

What did this year’s Lunar New Year celebrations include?
This year was the first year that we could properly celebrate after Covid-19. Tuck’s Asia Business Club (ABC) organized a modern, authentic celebration through performances that were true to contemporary Asian cultures. At the beginning of the celebration, each of our co-chairs, who represent different cultures from Asia, spoke about how their cultures celebrated the holiday, which brought a personal touch to the event. 

We went on to feature singing and rapping performances, an incredibly well-choreographed sequence of K-pop dances, and food and drinks from across Asia. The co-chairs even had the idea to stuff red envelopes with money and scatter them around the venue and at the end of the performances. It’s a tradition we grew up with where the elderly gave us money on New Year’s to ward off evil spirits, and it’s cool how we have reinvented the meaning in the context of being at Tuck. During the evening, a fellow Tuckie even gave me twenty bucks stuffed in an envelope and returned the well wishes to me!

The Tuck community really showed up not only to enjoy but also participate in the performances, with classmates both within the Asian community and outside attending almost daily practices leading up to the show to perfect their Blackpink moves. The hard work behind all performances and organizers really paid off when Cohen was packed (even on the second floor) and fellow Tuckies screamed in support.

How do you hope to build on the celebration next year?
I hope we can preserve this integrated format next year. To build onto the already exceptional celebration, I’d love to find creative ways to engage with the broader Tuck community leading up to the event and showcase more cultures from Asia in authentic and contemporary ways!

Do you have a favorite moment from this year’s Lunar New Year celebrations at Tuck?
My favorite moment was probably the dance party that concluded the evening. Ending a series of performances with high-energy K-pop and the dancers pulling other Tuckies in to dance really was the peak of the celebrations. I loved seeing classmates from all over, even those who are usually more reserved, join in on the fun and enjoy each other’s company. Lunar New Year is all about being with family and celebrating as a community, and at that moment Tuck really felt like a big family to me.

Can you tell us more about the nonprofit organizations ABC chose to donate to as part of the Lunar New Year celebration?
Lunar New Year celebrations are often marked by joy within families and giving among family members, and it’s also a critical time to extend that giving spirit to the community. Asian Mental Health Collective is a nonprofit organization that seeks to normalize and de-stigmatize mental health within the Asian community. It seeks to integrate our heritage, which emphasizes collectivism and achievement, with emotional well-being and mental health through difficult conversations, which aligns with ABC’s presence well. At Tuck, we value community while encouraging difficult conversations and understanding individuals, and ABC especially pushes the mission in the Asian community through events like AMA panels.

What has your first year as a member of the Tuck Asia Business Club been like?
ABC has been an incredibly welcoming community, with second-years who show up and represent our cultures really well. I’m surprised at the cohesion within our community, and how even though there are so many distinct cultures within Asia, we come together in ways that integrate well. For example, Lunar New Year is a time that calls for community gatherings and celebrations across our cultures. We were able to highlight that aspect throughout the evening, while also bringing unique parts of the different cultures through food, music, and dances.

What would you like prospective students to know about ABC?
ABC has been a great community that has allowed me to find representation, belonging, and inspiration. We have so many amazing second-year leaders on campus who actively engage in the broader Tuck community in their unique ways and bring their perspective and generous support to the Asian community too. While bridging identities and cultures, representation and inclusion are topics that have been continuously evolving for me; ABC has been great in helping frame that evolution in conversations and in practice.

Weiran Zeng T’24 is a first-year student at Tuck with experiences across consulting, brand management, and tech strategy, with a long-term career interest in seeing through technological transformations in consumer-facing businesses. She grew up across China and the U.S., graduated from Duke University with dual majors in economics and philosophy, and prior to Tuck worked in both New York and Beijing. At Tuck, she is a Next50 fellow, an associate at the Center for Digital Strategies, and plays rhythmic guitar in the Tuck Band.

Nick Lovinger T’23 & Sarah Martzloff T’23 reflect on the UAE’s strategic location, embrace of international tourists and businesses, and reinvention.

Sarah Martzloff T’23

What interested you about the GIX location and topic?
My pre-MBA background was slightly atypical: my undergraduate degree was from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland where I studied the history of art. I wrote my dissertation on nation branding through national and international museums in Qatar and the UAE. So, one attraction of this trip was the occasion to visit the Louvre Abu Dhabi, one of the places I had researched.

Additionally, I lived in and worked in Europe before Tuck, so the Middle East was a completely new region for me to visit. The GIX provided the perfect opportunity for me to expand my horizons and gain a wider context for business practices.

What was your first impression of your host location?
The cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi presented themselves as quite hospitable to international tourists and businesses alike to coexist with Emirati culture. It was interesting to experience cities that have developed so recently while pursuing economic and cultural diversification.

It was fascinating to see first-hand the way the UAE attracts foreign talent and is open to foreign cultures while bolstering its own talent pipeline and culture. Being in-country was eye-opening in terms of focusing on the strategic geographic location, connecting east and west through infrastructure and business relationships which reflects Dubai’s heritage as a historical trading post.

What site visits, tours, meetings, and/or people were most impactful for you during the GIX?
Starting with a cultural immersion experience which included a walk through the old town, spice souk and a visit to the Centre for Emirati Culture provided a fantastic introduction to Dubai/the UAE. We were able to ask questions about the culture, stereotypes, and customs, and discuss our initial impressions.

Over the course of the following days, I enjoyed visiting the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and learning more about how a free zone operates and what benefits it provides. This presentation made clear that the strategic vision for Dubai is to present the Emirate as a hub of the future. It hopes to promote relevance by opening itself up to the international business community—this emerged as a major theme during our GIX.

My background in brand management and marketing made our visit to Vogue Arabia especially interesting for me. It was a unique opportunity to discuss the challenges of adapting global campaigns to fit the taste of a more conservative regional consumer within the wider scope of a Western brand such as Vogue with its CEO and Publisher, Shashi Menon.

What is a key takeaway from this experience? What have you learned?
This experience reinforced how global the world is in terms of business initiatives and projects, and how interconnected we all are. The GIX also showed me the importance of spending time with classmates outside of the cocoon of the Upper Valley. As a small group, we were all from a variety of social constellations within Tuck’s fabric. Spending time together in a new location created new bonds and an unforgettable social and academic experience. I can highly recommend it.

What should prospective students know about the GIX and/or TuckGO requirement?
I’ve now completed the GIX and I’m currently on a term exchange, and while TuckGO is a requirement, it has absolutely been one of my favorite parts of my MBA. The two-year Tuck academic period is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but getting to travel with Tuck mates helps us savor the time we have in Hanover and create closer friendships. The GIX has been invaluable for making new connections and bridging what we learn in the classroom with the real world.

Originally from Montana, Sarah’s spent the past eleven years living and working in Europe. She graduated with a Master’s in art history from the University of St Andrews in Scotland before working in brand strategy consulting in London. Sarah then found brand management to be the perfect combination of strategic thinking and her appreciation for aesthetics and visual communications. This led her to Gothenburg, Sweden where she managed brand campaigns and digital marketing for the luxury camera company, Hasselblad. 

For her summer internship at Tuck, she led brand strategy development consulting at AKQA for Volvo Group and IKEA across London and Sweden. Sarah’s been spending her second year at Tuck figuring out how to spend more time abroad, from the Global Insight Expedition in the UAE to her winter term exchange at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Nick Lovinger T’23

Despite living only 40 minutes away from the best ski mountains on the east coast, 24 Tuck classmates and I decided to participate in a GIX to the only place in the world (other than New Jersey) with an indoor ski mountain: the UAE.

We were incredibly lucky to have our GIX coincide with the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which was being held in nearby Qatar. Along with two of my classmates, Will Ahlum T’23 and Salil Kelkar T’23 I flew out a few days early to watch Japan upset Spain in the opening round of the tournament. Having joined Tuck with a professional background in the sports industry, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience “the beautiful game” at the highest level.

Our trip kicked off in Dubai with a visit to the spice souk. We learned that prior to the discovery of oil in 1966, Dubai’s biggest industries were pearl diving and spice trading. In the following days, we visited leaders from several organizations that are driving Dubai’s economy into the future. A few highlights included Shashi Menon, CEO of Vogue Arabia, and Bart Cornelissen (T’04), Head of Deloitte’s Energy and Industrial Sector.

In addition to visiting businesses, we had plenty of opportunities for fun! Along with several classmates, I joined a “desert safari” where we had the opportunity to go dune bashing, camel riding, and sand boarding. The safari ended with a traditional Emirati barbeque followed by a fire and dance show. Later in the week, we toured the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

Abu Dhabi was equally fascinating. We visited several businesses, including Jio Bank, run by CEO Jayesh Patel T’05, and the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. We also stopped by beautiful landmarks including the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. The trip ended with a memorable visit to Saadiyat Beach Club and a special farewell dinner at the Emirates Palace.

The GIX was an incredible trip. I left with a newfound appreciation of the business opportunities and culture in the United Arab Emirates. Our hosts were incredibly friendly and the country’s transformation from a largely Bedouin society to one of the world’s most important economies is impressive. Additionally, this was a special opportunity to travel and get outside of my comfort zone with my classmates. Although we are close here at Tuck to begin with, I always leave a Tuck trip with several new friends!

Nick grew up in Westchester, New York. He attended Vanderbilt University, where he majored in economics and history. Prior to Tuck, he lived in New York City and was a corporate strategy manager at World Wrestling Entertainment. He interned at Bain & Company last summer and will be returning full-time upon graduation. Nick is the Co-President of Tuck’s Men as Allies Club, Entertainment Sports & Media Club, and a Tuck Winter Carnival Co-Chair. Outside of work, he enjoys running, making homemade pasta, and yelling about the Yankees with his three younger brothers.

Global Insight Expeditions (GIXs) help students develop cultural awareness, empathy for the thoughts and attitudes of local people, and agility to adapt their behavior to successfully navigate different business environments through structured reflection. Each course begins with classroom sessions on Tuck’s campus. Students then travel with one or two faculty members where they engage with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, community leaders, government officials, and local people from different walks of life.

T’23s McKenzie Hunt, Clark Pang, and Charley Yu reflect on the growth, modernization, and sustainability lessons learned during the UAE GIX course.

McKenzie Hunt T’23

When the opportunity arose to travel to the United Arab Emirates for my GIX, I was immensely excited to apply. Since its creation in 1971, the rapid development of the UAE has been nothing short of impressive. In five decades, the UAE has leveraged its accumulation of wealth through oil to transform what was once seven impoverished Emirates, into one of the most strategic and fast-growing economies in the world. However, what intrigued me most about the UAE was how they were planning to sustainably operate in a post-oil economy. Therefore, having the opportunity through Tuck to meet with policymakers, international business managers, and Tuck alumni to uncover the nuances and complexities that accompany planning for this shift was an invaluable experience that I couldn’t pass up.

Our GIX was led by Tuck/Dartmouth Professor, Dirk Vandewalle as well as the executive director of the Center for Business Government and Society, Hannah Payson, both of whom were well-versed in the gulf region. In a political economy such as the UAE where the Emirati culture is strongly tied to their business practices, it was helpful to have both Professor Vandewalle and Hannah provide context to the structure of the seven emirates, as well as the role that the monarchy has played in the development of the UAE. Specifically, as an expert in Islamic finance and institutional development and economic reform in the Arab Gulf states, Professor Vandewalle engaged us with his vast knowledge numerous times throughout our GIX, helping us to synthesize the impact and learning of each company visit.

Additionally, both Professor Vandewalle and Hannah made a concerted effort to get to know each of us as students and people. Whether it be during the daily 6 a.m. running group that Professor Vandewalle organized or the thoughtful conversation that Hannah had with us during our trips to the Louvre Abu Dhabi or the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, they each made us feel the depth of the Tuck community even while being so far from Hanover.

The GIX requirement is a wonderful way to get outside of the bounds of Tuck and apply what we have learned in the classroom on a global stage. The experience allows you to be in the epicenter of the topic that you’re learning and provides you with the tangible opportunity to grow your knowledge outside of the confinements of a classroom, case study, or excel sheet. It is a true hands-on experience that I am continuously grateful to have had and would recommend to any Tuck student.

McKenzie was born and raised in the suburbs outside of Boston. She attended the University of Pennsylvania where she majored in Marketing and Communications and was also a varsity student athlete on the women’s lacrosse team. Following graduation from Penn, McKenzie moved back to Boston where she spent most of her time working in marketing, specifically focused in data analytics and market research. She came to Tuck because of the community, proximity to her love of the outdoors and to pivot into consulting.

At Tuck McKenzie is a Student Board Chair, a Tuck Admissions Associate, a Non-Profit Board Fellow, a Next Step Fellow and is the co-chair of the unofficial Pickleball Club.

Clark Pang T’23

What interested you about the GIX location and topic?
Prior to Tuck, I had traveled to over twenty countries across five continents, but never to the Middle East. I wanted to add the UAE to my portfolio of experiences, because the unique Arabic culture mixed with ex-pats and its post-oil economy are attracting attention globally as Dubai and Abu Dhabi are trying to put many next-generation innovations into practice, including free zones, vertical farming, and sustainable energy. I also admire the strategic foresight of Sheikh Rashid, the founder of Dubai, who said my grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover … but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again. I was ecstatic to explore ”a tale of two cities: sustainability and the post-oil economy in the UAE,“ the topic of our GIX trip.

What was your first impression of your host location?
As a millennial born and raised in Shanghai, I have always been proud of the modernization and fashion of my metropolis, but was star-struck by the impressive architecture and infrastructure of Dubai when I landed in the UAE. The magnificent skylines and internationally renowned land projects extended the boundary of my imagination as I witnessed Burj Khalifa, Palm Jumeirah, and Dubai Shopping Mall.

While the local Emiratis account for only 15% of the total population in a majority ex-pat place, they were super friendly and accessible, eager to share with us the history and culture of the Emirates. They often greeted me with smiles and sometimes offered help to adjust my keffiyeh (traditional headwear) when I was walking in the street dressed in a kandura (traditional Emirati men’s dress).

What is a key takeaway from this experience? What have you learned?
If you have never been to Dubai, you might still get the stereotype that it is a rich oil economy. However, from Dubai government officials to local professionals, they have been taking significant efforts to transition into a more sustainable model. During our visits to various sites and meetings with local hosts and Tuckies working there, I got to know how the Dubai government has adopted a diversified economic development strategy in the last several decades. By developing logistics and building free ports and trade zones, Dubai keeps promoting its industrial upgrades and transferring to the service industry. Dubai has become a trade center in the Middle East and the third largest entrepot trade center in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.

Charley Yu T’23

What interested you about the GIX location and topic?
I had never visited any part of the Middle East before—the regions’ growth and interconnectivity to our global economy beckoned me to learn more about its position and influence. The UAE topic was specifically on its post-oil economy, which was structured to first educate students on the history and formation of the Emirates and its transformation during oil discovery. It allowed students to visit, ask questions, and reflect on businesses currently supporting the UAE’s investment into strategic and high-growth industries. Personally, I also had a growing interest in real estate, sustainability, and the retail sectors (which were three focus areas for the region).

During our GIX, both Dubai and Abu Dhabi were covered. The scheduled corporate visits provided a diverse perspective on differing growth priorities across the country. Being able to see the cities first-hand helped solidify a visual of growth and change that, despite the literature written on the region, was still difficult for me to grasp. I was very much excited to meet intellectually and technologically impressive hosts and to immerse myself in the experience.

How did Tuck faculty and/or staff contribute to your overall GIX experience?
The entirety of the GIX program is run by a group of dedicated faculty who months in advance plan the logistics of the meetings, support students to arrive in their locations, and organize everything on-the-ground for the students. I had so much appreciation for Professor Diederick (Dirk) Vandewalle during the GIX. All his past work—a two-time Fulbright fellow, a political advisor, a UN envoy, an author, a cameo in the Netflix documentary How to Be a Tyrant and much more—shined through in his guidance of introducing students to a new culture.

After meeting with different companies, our group would debrief on what surprised us, what we were curious about, and what additional questions we had. His facilitation style before and after our meetings was one of empathy, encouragement, and open-mindedness. However, he did not shy away from sharing his own opinions and constructive criticisms throughout the trip. It was refreshing to be around a professor who took an unbiased approach to learning.

What should prospective students know about the GIX and/or TuckGO requirement?
The GIX opportunity is one to take advantage of while at Tuck. It’s more than just visiting a foreign country, but an opportunity for students to challenge their own barriers to cultural immersion. After the visit, students can leave with an increased understanding but also continued curiosity which, especially during an educational period in one’s life, is often sometimes a rare result.

Charley is a second-year Tuck student pursuing investment banking. Prior to Tuck, Charley was a strategy and management consultant. She has been a part of teams at Mercer, Accenture, and PwC and has advised almost all levels of management. Charley has been fortunate enough to work on a high number of clients undergoing M&A transformation, mostly working on due diligence, emerging technology assessments, and operational improvement engagements. At Tuck, Charley is an active member in the Finance Club, a fellow for the PE/VC Center, and co-chair for Art Mouth (Tuck’s art club), Entrepreneurship Club, and Games Club. In her free time, she runs her own candy brand, and is an active member of the Consortium. Post-Tuck, Charley will start her career in investment banking.

Global Insight Expeditions (GIXs) help students develop cultural awareness, empathy for the thoughts and attitudes of local people, and agility to adapt their behavior to successfully navigate different business environments through structured reflection. Each course begins with classroom sessions on Tuck’s campus. Students then travel with one or two faculty members where they engage with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, community leaders, government officials, and local people from different walks of life.

T’23s Samuel Gray and Sarah Jolley reflect on some of the core values of Danish culture—including community, cooperation, and trust—that they experienced during their December 2022 GIX course in Copenhagen.

Samuel Gray T’23

Prior to taking off for my GIX in Copenhagen, I stopped to think, about how much you can really learn about a new country in nine days, on a trip with a relatively homogenous group of your peers, meeting with a relatively homogenous group of local business leaders, on a carefully curated itinerary approved by your MBA program.

This was my biggest question before we left for the trip and, well … a whole heckuva lot it turns out. Looking back, one of my biggest concerns was that I would place too much weight on what I discovered in the limited number of interactions we would have during our short time in Denmark. To do so would be to risk projecting the natural idiosyncrasies of a small group of people onto the beliefs and values of a country of approximately six million individuals. And yet to overdo it, to dismiss everything I saw and heard as merely human variation, would be similarly unhelpful. So, what did I learn?

I learned about hygge, a defining characteristic of Danish culture, roughly meaning “a quality of coziness that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.” It’s something that has always subconsciously resonated with me but that I now hope to incorporate into my own life more deliberately. I learned about Danish national pride, which I never expected to manifest itself so openly, coming from a preconceived (and potentially unfounded?) notion of Scandinavian culture as generally quite reserved—which is why I was quite surprised to see it both explicitly, through the ubiquitous Danish flags, and implicitly, through the love for their country apparent across our many hosts. I learned how truly world-leading Denmark is when it comes to the fight against climate change, and how refreshing it looks when riding a bike to work is the default mode of transportation. I learned about my classmates, during bus rides and games of cards; during lunches and dinners; during early mornings and late nights. And I learned about myself.

So how exactly did this experience shape my thoughts on our remaining time in Hanover? I’ll pick just two things. While it is getting ever easier to spend more and more time with those here at Tuck whom I have already become close with, GIX reiterated that I need to continue to push myself to reach out and make connections to those I haven’t yet gotten the chance to interact with as much. Almost every day I hear something that makes me re-appreciate what an incredible diversity of thought and experience my classmates bring, and I know I’ll regret it if I don’t make a deliberate effort to continue to learn and get to know better those around me.

And otherwise? It was a reminder to continue to stop and reflect on how lucky I am to be here right now. It’s something that often gets lost in the day-to-day chaos of being a student here at Tuck, but it’s true that there will likely never again be two more transformative years of my life, as professional and family commitments take up increasing amounts of my bandwidth, and some days it’s helpful to really sit back and acknowledge how fortunate I am to be in this position. The world can always use a little more gratitude.

Sam is from London, Ontario, Canada, and attended Williams College as an undergrad where he was an economics and psychology double major and a member of the Men’s Varsity Ice Hockey team. Prior to Tuck, he worked in management consulting in New York City across a range of industries and functional natures. At Tuck, he is a captain of the A/B Hockey Team and Golf Club. Sam enjoys rounds of golf at Woodstock Country Club, biographies, live music, and perfectly-fit jeans.

Sarah Jolley T’23

Coming from a background in federal consulting in the U.S. and having studied Political Economy as an undergrad, I was particularly interested in the topic of the Denmark GIX—the interplay between the state, market, and consumers. The objective of this GIX was to get a sense of how the Danish model of expansive government and extensive taxpayer-financed welfare system works, the challenges it faces, and whether it can remain sustainable and relevant as the world ventures further into the 21st century.

While I knew that Denmark, along with other Nordic countries, tends to stand out in global comparisons as one of the happiest, least corrupt countries with strong commitments to diversity, equality, non-discrimination, and environmental concerns, I had never visited any of the Nordic countries or thought deeply about how and why the Danish model works.
Upon landing in Copenhagen, I was immediately struck by how convenient it was to get around the city, some delicious porridge at Torvehallerne (a farmers’ market where I also witnessed parents leaving their babies unattended in their strollers), and an incredibly hygge bar where, by candlelight (of course), we watched Denmark’s loss to Australia in the group stages of the World Cup. Within these first few hours in Copenhagen, I had already experienced representations of some of the core values of Danish society—a sense of community and cooperation, a culture of trust, and general openness to visitors.

As our GIX unfolded, I learned about how the deeply ingrained values of cooperation, consensus-building, and trust impact the operations of Danish businesses as well as allow for an expansive welfare system and competitive and innovative economy simultaneously. In addition to speaking with Tuckies like Ulrik Schack T’94 and Ambassador Alan Leventhal T’76, who live and work in Denmark, I feel fortunate to have chosen a GIX led by a Dane who splits time between Copenhagen and Hanover—our professor, Hanne Pico Larsen.

Professor Larsen provided the opportunity for us to connect with Danes in both government and world-leading corporations and to spend time debating and synthesizing our understanding of Danish culture and business practices in a truly unique way. Prospective students should know that the TuckGO requirement is truly a deep dive into a topic and—while we live in the middle of the woods of New Hampshire—it enables Tuckies to develop deep cultural awareness and the agility to navigate different business environments.

Sarah graduated from Georgetown University in 2017 with a B.A. in political economy and art history. Prior to Tuck, she spent four years at Deloitte’s Government and Public Services practice in Washington, DC where she helped federal and non-profit clients with end-to-end human-centered design sprints and strategy development. At Tuck, Sarah has been a Maynard Entrepreneurship Fellow, Tuck-Magnuson Startup Incubator participant, and Center for Digital Strategies Associate. She is also a huge fan of Tripod Hockey, Tuck Winter Carnival, and Soccer Club.

Global Insight Expeditions (GIXs) help students develop cultural awareness, empathy for the thoughts and attitudes of local people, and agility to adapt their behavior to successfully navigate different business environments through structured reflection. Each course begins with classroom sessions on Tuck’s campus. Students then travel with one or two faculty members where they engage with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, community leaders, government officials, and local people from different walks of life.

T’23s Alison Kadavy and Sherry Yang reflect on tech, entrepreneurship, and life lessons from the December 2022 GIX course in Israel.

Alison Kadavy T’23

Tuck’s Israel GIX is centered around technology and entrepreneurship in the “startup nation.” While this identity was acknowledged at every company visit, we also heard a candid view from one of our hosts about Israel functioning as a “scale-up nation” instead. Indeed, Israel’s startup businesses do not operate that differently from those in the U.S., ultimately trying to scale to achieve longevity. Rather it is other aspects of Israeli culture that underlie the country’s success in the tech industry. As I reflect on what I learned during my GIX, a few takeaways and ‘ah-ha’ moments come to mind.

Israel balances family and career through a “work hard, play hard” culture. Our company hosts alluded to the intense Israeli workplace culture which was subsequently balanced with the relaxation of the Shabbat dinner we attended. My previous view of working at tech companies, especially startups, carried the connotation that employees are effectively required to be “on” 24/7. Of course, not everyone we met practiced the same degree of disconnecting during the weekend, but I admire the culture of commitment I saw in Israel to both work and personal lives. The dedication to workplace success and personal fulfillment was an important reminder to value this balance in my own career.

Admitting and learning from one’s failures is an expectation. Every presenter showed a genuine willingness to share and embrace their past mistakes. I found this acknowledgment to be refreshing and unexpected. Today, buzzwords like “adaptability” and “comfort with ambiguity” are pervasive in the tech space, but not everyone can translate these words into action. We met Mariam, a female Bedouin founder who truly embodies these values, and whose story shed light on the different ways a business can be successful. Startups are often focused on their different growth paths and options to exit, but success truly is in the eye of the founder. Not all business goals need to be driven by profit and monetary return to shareholders. Staying true to a founder’s vision or giving back to a community, like Mariam does by employing other Bedouin women, are equally valid measures of success.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and business impact is a growing concern. Our visit with the head of impact & sustainability at Pitango Venture Capital surprised me with the revelation that CSR and DE&I initiatives are not considered prevalent in Israel. Our GIX itinerary exposed us to a broad range of companies, including the Palestinian Internship Program which works to integrate Palestinians into Israeli workplaces, but programs such as this are not common. I had never fully reflected on the idea that the U.S. might be more progressive in these areas. At Tuck, we are often pushed to consider what efforts we can make in our own careers to push for more accountability in the CSR space. These company visits informed my role as a future business leader and my responsibility to raise these important topics both in the Tuck classrooms and my workplace.

My GIX was knowledge-filled and left me wanting to learn more about Israel. I now stay up to date on everything happening there as it relates to business, politics, culture, and, of course, the food scene! It is undoubtedly a cornerstone of my Tuck experience.

Alison is from Seattle, WA and attended Stanford University where she majored in human biology and French. Prior to Tuck, Alison worked at Roku in New York City in Audience Development and Account Management roles. In addition to being a lover of all things streaming TV-related, Alison enjoys running, crosswords, Broadway tunes, and Taco Tuesdays. After Tuck, she plans to join the tech industry as a product manager at Amazon.

Sherry Yang T’23

Starting our journey at Yad Vashem and Old Jerusalem anchored me to the struggles and challenges the Jewish people endured to be where they are today. I was in awe of Yad Vashem’s mission to identify all the missing names because retrieving the names of the lost ones reveals a part of their identity and allows us to remember them with more context. It was tremendously impactful to hear about the silver linings, leadership, willpower, and resilience individuals had during such a grim time. I left the museum feeling Hatikvah (hope) much like what the Israel National Anthem instills (also called Hatikvah). Old Jerusalem to me was an extremely memorable experience. I knew Jerusalem had strong religious roots across multiple religions but the magnitude of the graves on the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount and the density of religions in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was a humbling experience.

One of the most memorable parts of the trip for me was visiting Masada. Learning about the tragic death of 960 Jews, the method of suicide, and learning about their courage to take their own life instead of surrendering struck me. It once again helped me understand why Israelis are the way they are individuals growing up oathing “Masada shall not fall again” when they join the Israeli Defense Forces, individuals with a dedication to their country, and individuals with an incredible drive to succeed. Israel’s fight for sovereignty is also evident in the various historical conflicts over land (such as the West Bank and Gaza with Jordan and Egypt respectively) and its current challenges with Palestine. As a result of this historical and religious backdrop, it explains the cross-cultural differences—the straight-forward, go-getter attitudes, the restaurants not needing reservations, etc.

Overall, I felt that the Israel GIX experience was incredibly enriching. The thoroughness and intentionality of the trip planning, starting from Yad Vashem and Jerusalem to provide the historical and religious context to our incredible guide, Oran, the great team of students, and the trip leaders Adam and Vincent, I couldn’t have asked for a better GIX experience. I’ve always wanted to learn and travel to Israel given its intersection and importance in religion, history, and entrepreneurship. The GIX gave me a great starting point for understanding Israel more. It provided me with the understanding and motivation to dive deeper into this soon-to-be scale-up nation. I think what struck me most on this trip is the drive, passion, and relentless pursuit—aka chutzpah—Israelis possess. These are all essential characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and I have no doubt Israeli will soon become the scale-up nation it aims to be, given enough resources and capital.

Prior to Tuck, Sherry worked in the healthcare industry focused on drug licensing, consulting, and executing market entrance strategies in the U.S. and emerging markets to reshape the perceptions of cannabis as a consumer retail product. Sherry received her Bachelor of Health Sciences and a Master’s in Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization from McMaster University (Canada). At Tuck, she is a Healthcare Fellow, PEVC Fellow, Next50 Fellow, TVSF Director, ASW and WIBC co-chair, ABC co-chair, and loves making macarons, yoga, and dancing.

Global Insight Expeditions (GIXs) help students develop cultural awareness, empathy for the thoughts and attitudes of local people, and agility to adapt their behavior to successfully navigate different business environments through structured reflection. Each course begins with classroom sessions on Tuck’s campus. Students then travel with one or two faculty members where they engage with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, community leaders, government officials, and local people from different walks of life.

It is always an honor to be invited to share my thoughts and perspective with others and I am doubly grateful for the chance to do so at the intersection of Black History Month and Women’s History Month here in the United States. The history, heritage, and culture months are meaningful to me because they are an opportunity to share the stories that are not often featured or highlighted in history books or western media. Events like Black History Month are not meant to be the sole opportunity to acknowledge, learn, and reflect, on the culture, contributions, and stories of a particular group of people, but these moments are powerful because they offer us the chance to meet one of our fundamental human needs—the need to belong. 

I remember asking my mother why Black History Month was so important. I was uncomfortable with the spotlight that the month put on me as a young Black student in predominately white spaces. I didn’t know how to respond to things people said like: “If there’s a Black History Month, why don’t we have a White History Month?” She told me something that I’ll never forget: “those who don’t know (their) history are doomed to repeat it.” She also told me that Black History Month was about me learning, growing, and celebrating the way I wanted to. For me, February is a time to step back, remember and recognize the many great gifts Black and African diasporic people and leaders continue to bring to our nation and world, as well as to acknowledge and honor the painful moments in the history of Black Americans and enslaved Africans that have led to both the challenges I face and privileges that I enjoy due to the sacrifice of those that came before me and the opportunities that I have now because they endured the worst of human nature while striving to be and believe in the best of human nature. Despite the myriad heartbreaks and ailments in the modern Black American experience, Black History Month is also an opportunity to share the joy, love, strength, wisdom, hard work, and hope that fuel many Black and Pan African people and leaders today. 

Black History Month began in 1926 to recognize the achievements of people of African descent. Originally, the celebration lasted just a week. Maybe folks realized there were just too many good things to talk about in that short amount of time. Historian Carter G. Woodson selected the second week of February because it coincided with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history, however the fundamental truth that we must not let these months obfuscate is that Black History, like the experiences and contributions of all underrepresented groups in the U.S. is American History, and thus World History.

This leads me to share one of my guiding principles—“Ubuntu”, a philosophy or worldview that originated in South Africa which I learned from the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu when our paths crossed in 2007. The word “Ubuntu” has several varied definitions, most simply: “I am because we are.” A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” This concept resonates so deeply with me that it is one of the things that sustains me in the work that I do. DEI work can be polarizing, fear-inducing, shame-provoking and those feelings often provoke hostility, but when I remember that it isn’t about me, it is about us, I get the courage and excitement to clear the path for everyone’s stories.

I highly recommend taking a moment to learn more about the timeline of milestones in Black History, including the award-winning PBS show “Making Black America Through the Grapevine,” which explores the vibrant world at the heart of the Black experience. The best Black History Month movies on Netflix and the best books by Black Authors are highly recommended. If music is your thing, the Smithsonian’s “Musical Crossroads: African American Influence on American Music” is a quick read. Last, these 20 Statistics About Black-Owned Businesses and this (non-comprehensive) list of 25 Black Businesspeople Who Helped Shape America are thought-provoking and relevant for us as we sit at the intersection of business, education, and leadership here at the Tuck School. 

Finally, what many may not know about me is that as a classically trained accountant, I have always loved the intersection of business, entrepreneurship, education, and opportunity. Like many of your classmates, I worked for Fortune 100 firms PwC and Deloitte, often as the only Black woman, or one of a few Black people. These experiences were largely positive and powerful, but they led me to my life’s purpose which I’m fortunate to pursue as a leader at Tuck, to help create pathways for young people to access opportunities to educate themselves, build powerful networks, and gain the skills that will inform, inspire, and empower them to make the world a little bit better, for all of us.

Ubuntu,

Dia

Dia Draper is the inaugural Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, a TEDx speaker, wife, and a fallible but joyful human. Her reflections on Black History Month are her own and should not be taken as a universal truth or experience for all Black Americans.

Black Legacy Month (BLM) is a time in which the entire Dartmouth community comes together to celebrate and recognize the triumphs, struggles, and excellence of Blackness at Dartmouth.

Throughout the month of February, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities offer a number of events and programs to celebrate BLM. The purpose is to recognize the Black experience, explore topical issues in the Black community while giving context to a vision of what the Black future could be, and engage the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.

Seare Kidane T’23

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.
During my Tuck application process, I realized through self-reflection that many of my early obstacles were great experiences in the long run because they positively shaped my morals and work ethic.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?
My mother sacrificed much in her life so that I and my siblings could have access to quality education. The responsibility that she showed has inspired me to be a more effective leader by understanding the importance of others’ needs.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?
I view diversity like a party where everyone is invited, and equity/inclusion is an even better party because everyone not only gets invited but gets to choose the music. This is so critical because society should strive for all individuals to feel accepted and have influence.

Seare Kidane T’23 was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia to Eritrean refugees who taught him at an early age the importance of intellectual curiosity and resiliency to overcome his humble upbringing. Growing up, he honed these skills to excel in soccer and particularly academics, which led him to Georgia State University where he received a BBA in business economics. He pursued a career in banking after graduation because he knew he would be challenged to grow professionally and personally. In his nine years in banking, Seare was responsible for leading credit approval decisions for international companies and voluntary efforts addressing DEI. He hopes to leverage Tuck for a career in venture capital investing in the future. In his free time, he enjoys reading, community service, and watching sports.

Brittney Wade T’23

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
Tuck keeps me pretty busy, but I am an avid skier and try to hit the slopes as often as I can. I also work with a startup called Rebundle that makes hair extensions from sustainable materials rather than plastics. When I am not doing any of those things, I am likely working on a new page in my coloring book to relax and decompress.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?
From a career perspective, I most look up to Stacy Brown-Philpot and Edith Cooper. Stacy is the former CEO of TaskRabbit and has a strong presence in the broader tech space. She now serves on several boards from Nordstrom to StockX. To me, Stacy represents what is possible and attainable for me as I think about my own career goals.

Edith Cooper was a managing director at Goldman Sachs and was the first senior Black female leader I had the chance to interact with in my career. I deeply respect her career journey especially her navigation of Wall Street in the 80s. She also now serves on numerous boards and is well-respected in multiple business circles. Both of these women are simply goals!

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others? 
I love Spotify. I have been jamming to “FUN!” by Vince Staples, “Messing with Fire” by Motel 7, “Invincible” by Pop Smoke, “Oxytocin” by Billie Eilish, and “In a Spiral” by Phantogram. I have pretty eclectic taste. I also enjoy listening to a good true crime story with Morbid, the latest in pop culture with The Read, and catching up on the news with The Daily.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Black Legacy Month (BLM) is a time in which the entire Dartmouth community comes together to celebrate and recognize the triumphs, struggles, and excellence of Blackness at Dartmouth.

Throughout the month of February, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities offer a number of events and programs to celebrate BLM. The purpose is to recognize the Black experience, explore topical issues in the Black community while giving context to a vision of what the Black future could be, and engage the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.

Chris Lites T’24

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
I am a competitive athlete in the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I started training in my second year of medical school and have since become obsessed. I have competed in local and national tournaments and intend on remaining very active this year. The benefits of Jiu-Jitsu are many. For me, the sport has improved my focus, discipline, and confidence. However, it’s the strong sense of community and camaraderie that keeps me coming back!

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?
My mother. My mother is a Cardiologist and an Electrophysiologist and by far the hardest-working person that I know. I aspire to develop even just a fraction of her work ethic.

What’s something about you that only a few people know?
I am a huge science fiction nerd. For me, reading science fiction is therapy. It is a form of escapism. I often seek respite from daily stress by immersing myself in an entirely different universe, by way of a good book.

Chris is an MD/MBA candidate at Dartmouth, with significant clinical and management experience in health care. His demonstrated passion for roles that lie at the intersection of health care and business, combined with his desire to constantly push himself, leads him to pursue a leadership role in the field of emergency medicine.

Isabella Ford T’23

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I am proud of having the opportunity to build cross-cultural understanding and lasting friendships by studying and working in four countries and on three continents. Most recently I had the privilege of participating in a competitive MBA term exchange at London Business School, which provided an expanded perspective on diversity and international business. Additionally, as an undergraduate, I was fortunate enough to spend half a year studying German in Berlin and interning at the U.S. Consulate in Sydney, Australia.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
I have many interests outside of class—ranging from snowboarding to skiing to mentoring. However, I get the most satisfaction by volunteering my time to share with people of all faiths, ethnicities, and socioeconomic statuses the resources to find satisfying answers to life’s big questions relating to peace, happiness, suffering, and the future. I personally find the Bible to be historically accurate and to be a relevant source of practical wisdom and guidance for all people in the unpredictable world we live in.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?
I define DEI as an opportunity to include and learn from various voices, cultures, and experiences while ensuring that everyone has the resources and opportunities to succeed. One perspective should not be deemed superior, and everyone should feel welcome to share their perspectives and points of difference. DEI is critical as it’s a basic human right and in business, it’s needed for continued inspiration and innovation. Having diverse points of view on a team allows for problems to be approached from multiple perspectives, resulting in inclusive and dynamic solutions.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?
I believe that The Culture Map by Erin Meyer and The Unspoken Rules by Gorick Ng are two must-reads for any aspiring leader, especially those planning to work in a global context. The Culture Map, first introduced in the Tuck Core, offers insight into how leaders can decode when culture influences collaboration and provides strategies on how to lead and work effectively with cross-cultural teams. I found this advice extremely helpful during my summer internship, where I needed to effectively facilitate dialogue and collaboration among interns representing five different nationalities

The Unspoken Rules offers a great perspective on how to navigate the school-to-work transition and position yourself for leadership visibility and promotions. This book is written from the perspective of a first-generation, underrepresented minority who provides guidance that is increasingly valuable to women and other people of color who may get overlooked in the workplace.

Isabella is from Chicago, Illinois and attended Dartmouth College as an undergrad where she majored in history modified in geography with a German minor. Prior to Tuck, Isabella was at IBM where she specialized in sales and marketing. At Tuck, she is a member of the Consortium, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, BSAT, and is a Tuck Mentor. This fall, Isabella completed a term exchange at London Business School. Isabella enjoys traveling, skiing, small group dinners, cycling, meeting new people, and dancing.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Black Legacy Month (BLM) is a time in which the entire Dartmouth community comes together to celebrate and recognize the triumphs, struggles, and excellence of Blackness at Dartmouth.

Throughout the month of February, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities offer a number of events and programs to celebrate BLM. The purpose is to recognize the Black experience, explore topical issues in the Black community while giving context to a vision of what the Black future could be, and engage the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.

Zach Panton T’24

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?
I am inspired by my parents. They inspire me in what they do and say. As I have grown older, I have come to recognize the sacrifices they have made silently to create the best upbringing possible for me and my siblings. I am grateful for them, and when I think about them, I want to do and be better.

How would you describe your life philosophy?
One of my favorite life principles is: “appreciate everything.” In life, we have some experiences that build us up and feel like a win and others that feel like unprecedented and insurmountable challenges. Though, with each life experience there’s often a truth to be learned. I’ve found joy in reflecting and growing while progressing in life, and I’ve grown appreciative of all opportunities to learn.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?
For me, a good leader is one who is willing to lead progress from the front and do the work required to lead change. The sacrifices of leadership are often done in silence, without overt recognition or reward, but the fulfillment eventually comes from making your people and community better off.

Zach Panton T’24 is from South Florida. He originally came to Dartmouth for his undergraduate studies and medical school. Throughout his experiences, he grew more curious about the financial and economic drivers of healthcare, and Tuck was the obvious choice for the pursuit of his MBA studies. The community, camaraderie, and strength of the Tuck community were perfect for his pursuit of learning, self-improvement, and career development.

Josh Kotey T’23

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?
To me, diversity, equity, and inclusion is ensuring fair treatment and opportunity for all. It should aim to eradicate prejudice and discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics (age, disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, race, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sexual orientation). Allowing hate and prejudice to permeate the walls of society sends society backward.

How do you define “success”?
I define success as being fulfilled, happy, safe, healthy, and loved. I also define success as an equal opportunity for all. When there is a level playing field and everyone has an equal opportunity, that means we can all win together. Although this is an ideology that I believe some groups of people do not share, I am optimistic that someday things will work out.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?
A good leader is someone with the ability to influence a group of individuals in achieving a common goal. A good leader should embody the following characteristics: good listener, empathetic, aware, persuasive, forward-thinking, and constant growth of their people. Hence, a good leader must always think through the lens of both a leader and a follower whenever they make decisions.

Josh Kotey T’23 is originally from Ghana, West Africa. He’s been in the US since 2008 and served in the U.S. Army. He worked at two prominent consulting companies in Boston and has an MPH from Boston University School of Public Health. During his free time, he enjoys listening to music and engaging friends in intellectual conversations. He hopes to return to his home country Ghana and contribute to its development someday. He believes that all humans are here in this life for a purpose, and that his is to make a difference by not only being a good citizen but contributing to the lives of other underprivileged humans. He’s currently pursuing his MBA at the Tuck School of Business and is a member of the Black Students Association at Tuck.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

In its 20th year, the Kellogg Healthcare Case Competition is one of the oldest and most recognized case competitions in the world. This year, the topic was, “Design the launch strategy for Pfizer’s new RSV vaccine and estimate the market potential of RSV and Pfizer’s market share in 2025.” 11 out of 35 teams from top business schools across three countries were selected as finalists and competed at Kellogg. Team Tuck—Leslie Akplah T’24, Hanz Mangan Antony T’24, Caitlyn Garland T’24, Marie Smoak T’24, Xiangyu Zhao T’23, and I took home first place.

As a team, what were your unique strengths?
Diversity was the biggest strength of our team. We come from diverse countries of origin, educational backgrounds, and divisions of the healthcare industry. Our prior experiences include, but are not limited to, healthcare consulting and analytics, clinical medicine, pharmaceutical sales, product management, new product planning, and business development.

What was preparation and research like? What went into building your final presentation?
We spent one week preparing for the case. The Center for Health Care and several classmates with relevant professional experience contributed to establishing our understanding of the case scenario. We also took a look at resources at Feldberg Library. All these inputs were helpful in building our final presentation.

What are some of your key takeaways?
Our success benefited significantly from connecting with other Tuckies who shared their insightful experience and knowledge, applying what we learned in multiple classes, and leveraging existing resources at Tuck. In addition, forming a diverse team helped to spark and solidify good ideas and creative solutions. It underlined critical challenges faced by pharmaceutical companies in releasing new products to benefit millions of patients.

This competition also served as an excellent opportunity to sharpen our understanding and skills for analyzing similar scenarios in the future, given the nature of complexity and intercorrelation of various components of the healthcare industry. 

Are there any lessons you learned at Tuck that you were able to put into action during the case comp?
Yes! The Management Communication class helped a lot. We created our presentation slides using the concepts introduced in ManComm, including executive summary, trackers, consistent visuals, etc. More importantly, when we presented, we fully followed HOP-T. For each slide, we presented the headline, oriented on how the slide is organized, explained the key points, and finally transitioned to the next slide. Judges loved our slides and presentation style.

Our marketing class was also helpful in teaching us how to create our patient segments, positioning statement, and marketing campaigns.

The teamwork skills we developed in working within study groups also helped us to work together smoothly and efficiently and put together a final presentation in a week.

Earlier this year, I attended the MBArk Sustainability & Food Leadership Conference at the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business. The trip was made possible through funding provided by the Center for Business Government & Society and the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability & Innovation. The conference hosted over 30 speakers and nearly 100 attendees, covering salient topics from soil to shelf—including regenerative agriculture, sustainable packaging, and the climate change narrative. While every speaker was phenomenal, a few sessions stood out as particularly insightful or inspiring.

The Regenerative Revolution — Gene Kelly, Colorado State University
Pedology is the study of soil science, and is an increasingly important topic for business leaders to become fluent in. Soil filters water, reduces flooding, regulates the atmosphere, stores carbon, and is home to one of the most diverse habitats on the planet. While the great success of the global agricultural system has led to an astonishing ability to feed a rapidly growing population, innovation has come at the cost of degrading topsoil, which is responsible for 95% of global food production. Responsible food systems leaders should consider the impact their actions have on soil health and look for practices that align social, economic, and ecological incentives for food production.

CPG Sustainability — Darcy Shiber-Knowles, Director of Operational Sustainability & Innovation at Dr. Bronner’s
Dr. Bronner’s is a unique company in that it embodied stakeholder capitalism before the term was brought into public consciousness. The company has a deep commitment to public good, as is evidenced by its record-breaking B-Corp rating. Their transparency on the challenges they seek to address—moving away from plastic packaging and shifting a global producer network to regenerative farming practices—not only builds consumer trust but also helps drive speedier progress. For example, the presentation noted an article published on the company blog, which by communicating vulnerability in sustainable packaging challenges, led directly to innovative ideas, partnerships, and pilot opportunities. Showcasing openness in sustainable transitions is important—no organization has all the answers, and collaboration is required to achieve the change we envision. I appreciated the insight that successful organizations treat sustainability horizontally rather than vertically. Sustainability should be embedded in every function of the business, rather than operating in a silo, and Dr. Bronner’s is a company leading that evolution.

Changing the Narrative — LeeAnn Kittle, Director of Sustainability at Denver Public Schools
There are a staggering number of children who feel anxiety, fear, or even guilt over a climate crisis they did not cause. This state of despair can be stupefying, leading to inaction simply because the problem feels too big to even know where to start. Denver Public Schools aims to shift youth sentiment on sustainability from one of despair to one of empowerment by assigning each school its own sustainability project to be led by students. The Denver Public School Climate Action Plan is a playbook for educators to reduce emissions, conserve natural resources, and better prepare students for an emerging green economy—I hope more school districts follow their lead.

I left the conference feeling inspired. Surrounding myself with like-minded students, speakers, and professionals allowed me to return to Hanover from winter break feeling refreshed and motivated. I left with new insights, connections, and an expanded perspective on what it means to lead food systems change as a business leader.

Of course, the journey does not end in Boulder. At Tuck, I have the opportunity to engage with like-minded students in a number of academic, professional, and experiential learning opportunities. Planning the 2023 Virtual Summit on Ag and Food Tech at Tuck; taking coursework on Current Issues in the Global Food System; and seeking an internship in early-stage innovation are experiences that allow me to stay connected to topic areas I am passionate about.

If you are excited about addressing the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system like I am, there is opportunity for you in Hanover. And if you are at all interested in sustainability, I highly recommend attending the conference in the future. 

Thank you to Joe Dobrow and the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business for hosting the event—and Tuck for making my trip a possibility!

Black Legacy Month (BLM) is a time in which the entire Dartmouth community comes together to celebrate and recognize the triumphs, struggles, and excellence of Blackness at Dartmouth.

Throughout the month of February, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities offer a number of events and programs to celebrate BLM. The purpose is to recognize the Black experience, explore topical issues in the Black community while giving context to a vision of what the Black future could be, and engage the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.

Jasmine Joda T’23

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I’m proud of receiving ‘President of the Year’ when I served as president of my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. I was humbled to initially be nominated by my peers, but being recognized for exceptional leadership among the entire National Pan-Hellenic Council always enables me to look back on that service with pride.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?
Outside of work and school, I love designing. I currently run BSAT’s Instagram page @blackattuck. I often considered myself solely analytical but appreciate that my experience at Tuck has allowed me to really explore my creative side.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?
I admire my father. As an immigrant from Nigeria, he continues to inspire me with his resiliency and wisdom. He is constantly looked at as a source of clarity and logic among his peers and never ceases to amaze me with his tolerance and support the older I get.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion for me today means intentionality. In the wake of George Floyd, I think there’s an influx of DE&I programming, but we’re often preaching to the choir in those instances. In order for us to see true change, it requires individuals going beyond comfort to proactively build empathy.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?
A good leader is accountable and a visionary. Often the best leaders I’ve encountered know when to accept when they’re wrong, have a clear vision for the future, and have the charisma to inspire others to make that vision come to life.

Jasmine is from Bloomington, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she majored in Accountancy. Prior to Tuck, Jasmine was a Management Consultant at Accenture in the Talent & Organization / Human Potential practice where she specialized in workforce transformation and organizational design. At Tuck, she is a Forte Fellow and a Consortium Fellow. Last summer, she interned with Google as a strategy & innovation intern. This fall, Jasmine completed a term exchange at ESSEC in Paris. She currently serves as a BSAT Co-Chair. Jasmine enjoys reality TV, reading biographies, and yoga.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Black Legacy Month (BLM) is a time in which the entire Dartmouth community comes together to celebrate and recognize the triumphs, struggles, and excellence of Blackness at Dartmouth.

Throughout the month of February, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities offer a number of events and programs to celebrate BLM. The purpose is to recognize the Black experience, explore topical issues in the Black community while giving context to a vision of what the Black future could be, and engage the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.

Leah Jack T’21

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are words to describe the hard work of building a team or community that seeks out and elevates voices and experiences not typically centered. DEI provides the individuals on that team or in that community with their specific needs and avoids a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s vital if we want to create a society in which everyone can thrive.

How do you define “success”?
I often cave into societal pressures but am constantly trying to build my own definition of success. Here’s what I have so far: take at least one bucket list trip every five years, limit my work week to 50 hours max (40 hours would be a dream), move to solar energy and get an electric car, retire with no debt and a long list of books to read, raise a thoughtful and productive human being, and have a positive impact on society.

What is your vision for the future?
I hope to see a future where everyone has access to decent housing, universal basic income, education that promotes critical thinking and constructive dissent, a healthy environment, and a justice system based on human decency and restorative practices. Our world would be so much better off if we shifted away from extractive, self-interested individualism and towards a truly democratic society.

Leah Jack T’21 is a Trinidadian-American Navy brat who spent most of her formative years in Jacksonville, Florida. She now lives near Amherst, Massachusetts with her husband. At Tuck, she was an associate and board fellow with the Center for Business, Government & Society as well as a co-chair for the Black Student Association at Tuck. She is currently pursuing a career in education as a school business administrator in Massachusetts.

Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I am most proud of the Fulbright award that I received. Through that award, I was able to interview professional Indian women to delve into their mentoring experiences as they managed their careers. That research allowed me to confirm that there are some issues and realities regarding mentoring that women around the world face. This research also allowed me to tap into some of the unique, culturally-bound issues that our sisters across the world must deal with as they are managing their careers.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?
Two of my “sheroes” are Dr. Ella L.J. Bell Smith and her research partner Dr. Stella Nkomo. Their scholarship has illuminated the experiences of Black women. I met Ella and Stella during the first year of my doctoral program at the University of Michigan. All of the messages that I was receiving as a young scholar were that you better not do your work on women, especially women of color. The consequences would be too dire. You would not be able to publish that work. You would not be able to get a job. You would not be respected as a scholar.

So, Ella and Stella were stepping out on a ledge when they led the research project resulting in Our Separate Ways. For over 30 years, Ella and Stella’s wisdom has inspired my research on the mentoring experiences of Black women (and subsequently on women of color across the globe). Thank you to these two extraordinary women who were willing to push the envelope, to say without hesitation that Black women’s experiences are significant, that they merit attention and care. Shukriya.

What’s something about you only few people know?
Few people know that I have an outdoor athletic persona. I hiked a 14er, Mt. Elbert in Colorado. I completed the B.A.A. (Boston Athletic Association) Distance Medley with my husband Vince Beard. This medley consists of a 5K, 10K, and half-marathon. And as a teenager, I participated in Outward Bound. Each one of these activities has a mental component. The opportunity to marry physical strength with mental capacity is always a treat.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to travel. But many people don’t know that I have journeyed to six continents. One more to go—Antarctica, here I come.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?
I have the pleasure and fortune of belonging to a book club of Black women—who have supported me since my arrival in Boston in 1996. We are reading Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry. I appreciate the messages and insights that she proffers because they are so real and so necessary.

But there is a book that I keep by my bedside—Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson. Even though I read this book years ago, I am still blown away by the depth and brilliance of Wilkerson’s commentary.

In terms of watching, I recently revisited Hidden Figures. Being reminded of the bravery and tenacity of Mary Jackson and her career at NASA never gets old. Finally, my favorite musician is Pat Metheny—it doesn’t matter what mood I am in. Metheny’s masterpieces always speak to my soul. And sometimes I just get in a good salsa when his Latin grooves play.

Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, clinical professor of business administration at Tuck, is a renowned scholar, consultant, speaker, mentor, and coach. Prior to Dartmouth, Dr. Blake-Beard was a member of the faculty of Simmons College School of Business and Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Blake-Beard is the author of two books, Mentoring Diverse Leaders: Creating Change for People, Processes, and Paradigms and Handbook of Research on Promoting Women’s Careers. Dr. Blake-Beard’s academic research focuses on the issues women face as they develop mentoring relationships. She also studies the dynamics of formal mentoring programs in both corporate and educational settings. Dr. Blake-Beard researches and practices in international contexts, drawing from her global experiences. She received a 2010-2011 Fulbright Award to support her project, “Systems of Sustenance and Support: Exploring the Impact of Mentoring on the Career Experiences of Indian Women,” in partnership with the Center for Leadership, Innovation, and Change at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India.

Dr. Blake-Beard sits on the advisory boards of a number of organizations, including MentorNet, Teen Voices, the Harvard Project on Tenure and the Harvard Medical School Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Dr. Blake-Beard has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Robert Toigo Foundation.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

We’ve all seen countless photos and videos of lions, but none of them prepared me for the intense 10-second eye contact I made a wild stoic lion, a mere 10 ft away from me on my first time on a safari. I gathered from background chatter that a lion is able to charge a target in a split second, a fact that led me to slowly break eye contact, grab my photo and lean as far away as possible from my side of the windowless truck closest to this predator.

To my relief, Edwin, our tour guide and truck driver explained that the wild animals at the Erindi Old Traders Game Lodge have been sensitized to the specific make, color, and sound of the trucks we were in. That means the wild animals see the trucks—including the people in them—as a single harmless entity and have no reason to charge at trucks. This experience is one of several lifetime experiences I enjoyed on a Namibia trek I wasn’t meant to be on.

The trek, organized by Linda Horner, T’20 and Tuck Africa Club co-chair, was scheduled for 2020 before the pandemic staved it off. What ensued, two years later, was a multi-generational Tuck trek that saw me, a T’23 and current Tuck Africa Club co-chair, as the coordinator of a group of another T’23, a T’22, and several T’20s and their partners or relatives.

Situated in southern Africa with a population of 2.5 million and a size twice that of California, Namibia is known to be the second least densely populated country. It is also known for its deserts, high sand dunes, pristine wildlife experience, and beautiful landscape. Here’s a quick synopsis of our time in this beautiful country:

• The trek was organized through Destination Partners, a travel management company. The basic structure was to travel through Namibia in a circular fashion from Windoek to Mariental, Soussusvlei, Swakopmund, Erindi, and back to Windoek. We had one main tour guide, Johan, who drove us to all towns, where several tour guides and drivers took over.
• We spent the first couple days at a country club in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia with a population of about half a million. Here, some of us settled into the country as we waited for all 17 attendees to arrive
• Day 3 saw us start our journey to the Bagatelle Kalahari Game Ranch at Mariental. There, we went on a game drive through the Kalahari desert, home to rare species such as the oryx (Namibia’s national animal), rhino, cheetah, springbok, and other wildlife. The game drive ended with champagne and snacks served over a gorgeous sundowner in the desert.
• Early the next morning, we went on a morning Bushman walk, visiting the traditional indigenous hunter-gatherer Bushman village where the Bushmen (also San people), gave several fascinating exhibitions showcasing their engineering and resourcefulness. After the walk, we drove off for Sossusvlei, making a lunch stop to enjoy a performance by the Maltahohe School Choir, a choir of young orphan children formed to grow and develop their skills.
• The Sossusvlei area is considered the heart of the Namib desert and is home to the 2nd tallest dune in the world (Big Daddy), which we hiked (2621 ft elevation). The way up was challenging and tiring, but the thrill of posing with the Tuck flag at the peak and fun of running down the dunes made up for it.
• The next day (day 6), we made our way to Swakopmund, stopping to see Welsitschia, one of the oldest plants on earth, and the Moonlandscape, an area with a terrain that mirrors that of the moon so much so that Johan wonders aloud if the moon landing on Apollo 11 was staged there.
• The following day was adrenaline fueled with dune drives through Sandwich Habor and quad bike rides through the dunes. We enjoyed another beautiful sundowner over oysters and wine and concluded the day with a surprise open air desert dinner featuring fire spinners. The night ended, in a typical Tuck fashion, with a late-night party in the Namib desert.
• We spent the next couple days at the Erindi Old Traders Lodge (OTL), stopping on our way there for a wine making and tasting session at the Erongo Mountain Winery, whose Ondjaba whiskey won the 2022 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. OTL boasts an impressive 270 square mile area that serves as home to many wild, possibly endangered, free roaming wildlife, including the wild lion I made the intense eye contact with. The lodge is heavily protected to deter poachers and offers morning, afternoon, and evening game drives, all of which we enjoyed both days of our stay.
• On the last day we made our way back to Windhoek for a formal tour of the area before we boarded our return flights. 5,000 feet above sea level, Windhoek is clad with Germanic style buildings that immortalize the short but violent German colonial rule from 1884 to 1915. The city is the typical starting point for many tourists visiting the country. Many visitors are often surprised by the extreme cleanliness and peacefulness of the area, pronouncing it as an “un-African” city, a remark considered by many residents as a somewhat back-handed compliment.

A lot of the experiences I had on this trip were first-time experiences. Growing up in a lower middle-class family in Accra, Ghana, visiting other countries was the least of our priorities. My Tuck career has seen me travel outside of Ghana and the U.S. for the first time—a noteworthy achievement because one of the four pillars that formed the reasons I wanted to attend not just any business school, but Tuck specifically, was to expand my perspectives and life experiences. These experiences leave me energized and motivated to seek new experiences and challenges. For now, I can cross off making eye contact with a wild lion.

George Agyeman-Badu is a T’23 and current co-chair of the Tuck Africa Club with Annette Jatto and Prosper Mangwiro as fellow cochairs. He is a proud Ghanaian and loves to share his culture and explore other cultures. He interned at BofA Securities in the healthcare investment banking group and will be joining the group full-time in the summer of 2023.

The Tuck Africa Club is a student-run and student-led club with three main goals: 1) increase the presence of Africa on the Tuck campus by educating the Tuck community on the diverse heritage, cultures, and investment opportunities on the continent; 2) create a safe and warm space for students with a strong affinity to Africa to commune with themselves and/or with other affinity groups; and lastly, 3) engage with prospective students from Africa.

The only purpose of a woman’s tongue is to taste her food.
Why speak when your food will speak for you.
Women are not allowed a seat at the table.
Because they are the ones serving it.
My mother makes the best food I know though.
Probably because it tastes like everything she’s lost.

This is an excerpt from a poem about sexism in Sudanese culture, entitled Arusa (Bride) and delivered by Baya, a Washington DC based Sudanese poet and activist. The essence of the poem is that Baya’s mom did not teach Baya how to cook as a lesson that Baya’s value as a person does not lie in her culinary skills, with her mom serving as an example of a woman whose identity and significance were reduced to her culinary skills only to serve a man in a sexist culture and to lose out on other joys in life as a result. That is how the first day of a two-day Africa Business Conference thoughtfully organized and perfectly executed by the Columbia Business School Africa Club ended.

The first day saw Fred Swaniker, a Ghanaian serial entrepreneur and leadership development expert, and Kuseni Dlamini, chairman for Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd., kick off the ceremony held at the Columbia Business School campus in New York City. Programming for the rest of day one included African food for lunch and several panels. One such panel, Harnessing Innovative Health for Africa, discussed the kinds of innovation, necessary stakeholders, and regulatory changes needed for health care in the African market. Another panel, Expanding the Conversation of Beauty, discussed the evolution of beauty standards, transformation of the beauty industry, especially within Africa, and how the intersection of the beauty industry and social media impacts the definition of beauty in the African community. Other panels included African Leaders on Wall Street, Examining the Role of Heritage & Culture in Socioeconomic Progress and Development, and the African Influenced Aesthetic. The day ended with a keynote by Alexander Cummings, Founder and Chairman of Cummings Investments Holdings, a showcase of colorful African fashion, and lastly Baya’s moving poem.

The Future of the Pan-African Dream panel kicked off day two with a strong start. The panel discussed the vision of Ghana’s own Kwame Nkrumah—who led the then Britain colony to independence, the first in Africa—to free and unite all African states against neocolonial exploitation and how the vision is coming together in the midst of economic, political, and linguistic challenges. Samia Nkrumah, the only daughter of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, was in attendance together with Uzodinma Iweala, Phiwokuhle Mnyandu, and others. The day showcased authentic Ghanaian food for lunch and an African Cultural Gallery. Other panels included Engineering a Better Africa, Investing in Africa, and The Role of Music in Africa’s Global Relevance. The final Keynote was given by Dr. Vera Songwe, chair of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility for the UN Economic Commission for Africa, who left us with three thoughts: 1. Africa has a liquidity problem; not a debt problem; 2. Raw materials need to be processed before being exported; 3. There’s a lot of evidence of what’s not working, but little effort on working out what to do moving forward and that has to change. The event concluded with a closing ceremony and a night party.

At the end of the conference, I had a couple of personal takeaways. First is that it is important for African narratives to be told by Africans for the world and Africans alike to fully grasp the nuances and differences of thought that exists in the continent, stemming from the high degree of diversity on the continent and influencing progress towards finding unanimous lasting solutions to its problems. And second is that as discussed in the Future of the Pan-African Dream panel and a separate independent fireside chat held with Hakeem Belo-Osagie, a Harvard professor and chair of Metis Capital Partners, during Harvard Business School’s Africa Business Conference last Spring (2022), thought leaders are divided on whether capitalism is adequately serving the continent and wonder if a different or modified economic ideology might be a better fuel for faster and more sustainable economic development. I will be curiously following this discussion.

George Agyeman-Badu is a T’23 and current cochair of the Tuck Africa Club with Annette Jatto and Prosper Mangwiro as fellow cochairs. He is a proud Ghanaian and loves to share his culture and explore other cultures. He interned at BofA Securities in the New York City health care investment banking group and will be joining the group full-time in the summer of 2023.

The Tuck Africa Club is a student-run and student-led club with three main goals: 1) increase the presence of Africa on the Tuck campus by educating the Tuck community on the diverse heritage, cultures, and investment opportunities on the continent; 2) create a safe and warm space for students with a strong affinity to Africa to commune with themselves and/or with other affinity groups; and lastly, 3) engage with prospective students from Africa.

In November 2022, I attended the United Nations climate conference and negotiations, COP27, as part of the Tuck delegation which was sponsored by the Center for Business, Government & Society and the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability and Innovation.

To me, Tuck’s participation in COP27 represents our school’s commitment to preparing business students to engage in thoughtful, constructive dialogue with global citizens to build a more sustainable future. It is one thing to read about Tuck’s commitments on the school website as an applicant, another to sit in the classroom alongside peers who were also selected to exemplify and expand upon Tuck’s legacy in the world, and entirely different to step off the plane in Egypt and represent Tuck at the United Nations. I am fortunate to have experienced all three of these moments in just two years’ time.

As a joint degree student between Tuck School of Business and Harvard Kennedy School for Public Policy, I find myself often traveling between the two campuses and states of mind—questioning how business principles can improve basic access to resources for vulnerable populations, and how government can fulfill a more significant role in creating and regulating technologies that protect people’s social and economic freedoms.

I became passionate about migrant and refugee services in 2014 and worked on resettlement services for five years prior to graduate school. Since I started this work, the migrant crisis surged by 40% to a startling level of 100 million people displaced worldwide. The migrant crisis is continuing to grow at a faster pace than urban policy solutions. At COP27, I was able to immerse myself in climate dialogues to better understand how climate change is exacerbating forced migration, shaping urban lifestyles and economics, and changing the future of the world order based on access to sustainable resources.

While these insights only skim the surface of what is currently being debated in climate policy circles, there is so much that we can do with this information as average citizens.

• If you live in the United States or Europe, expect to shift your lifestyle and work dramatically to support the new climate finance deals. Scientists predict the shift to a green global economy will require at least $4–6 trillion of investment yearly. The US and Europe contributed more than 80% of global carbon emissions for the first half of the 20th century and account for close to 30% of current emissions. Don’t wait for regulations to catch up to the recommendations of climate scientists; anticipate the shift away from fossil fuels, a potential hike in taxes, and prepare your families and businesses to make more environmentally sustainable decisions.
• If you work in the finance, manufacturing, or energy sectors, your work is about to be transformed by the accelerating shift toward a green economy and away from fossil fuels. There can no longer be niche subject matter experts on how climate change affects these markets; the average analyst will need to be more knowledgeable on the upcoming renewable transition, as it is coming fast.
• Across industries, leaders should place a greater emphasis on listening to the voices of women and indigenous populations when creating strategies for sustainable initiatives. Indigenous populations have managed >80% of the world’s biodiversity with <2% of climate financing; these communities are the experts on sustainable resource management. Women’s carbon footprints are less than 1/3rd of the emissions by men on a global scale and regions that engage women’s political voices are linked with significantly lower carbon emissions.

No matter your wealth, status, or geography on Earth, global warming will affect your lifestyle and the generations to come. Climate change realities simply cannot be ignored or avoided, and we need cross-sector, cross-industry resolve to make the sustainable revolution possible.

Those of us who live in the privileged, global superpower nations with the highest historic emissions should acknowledge how our current lifestyles were funded by the resources and talents of nations experiencing the worst effects of global warming. If we are to move forward in a sustainable future together, we must address past and current harms to these communities, redress wrongs, support the prosperity and dignity of climate-vulnerable groups, and invest in more sustainable strategic plans led by individuals who understand how to face and survive natural resource constraints.

My study of climate issues has just begun, and I encourage you to join me in learning a more responsible approach to living and working. For further study, I refer to the expertise of climate scientists (visit the IPCC’s climate reports), climate activists (learn about youth climate activism tools), and leaders in natural resource management (read about modern indigenous practices for sustainable living).

Each year Tuck sends an observer delegation of students to the Conference of Parties for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This unique opportunity is part of the co-curricular experience where students achieve their distinctly immersive and highly individualized learning environment that encourages reflection and fosters personal development. Students apply for this opportunity and funding and logistical support is given by the Center for Business, Government & Society and the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability and Innovation.

Dear Tuck Community,

Happy New Year! We wanted to share with you some of the highlights from the fall term here at Tuck as well as shout out some of the programs and initiatives that make the Tuck School a vibrant, ambitious, and meaningful contributor to the world of business and business education.

We strive to advance Tuck’s mission to develop wise, decisive leaders who better the world through business via a multitude of programs, initiatives, and partnerships. However, when we talk about Tuck, and when people external to the organization think about Tuck, we are often centering our flagship full-time MBA program. While our two-year MBA is highly ranked, globally respected, and impactful, our faculty and staff lead programs for everyone from undergraduates to executives, athletes, veterans and entrepreneurs and several joint and dual degree programs as well as opportunities to study abroad.

It is a joy to witness the energy, intellectual curiosity, camaraderie and the love of learning that students bring to our Master of Healthcare Delivery Science, Tuck Business Bridge, the premier Diversity Business Programs which celebrated more than 40 years of supporting diverse businesses in 2020, TuckLAB, the Next Step Transition to Business, and other programs each year.

Each program contributes to the mission of the Tuck School in its own unique way. We are proud of the participants and alumni of our undergraduate and executive programs and recognize that unlike our MBA program, most students in those programs continue to work while completing their courses.

It is also satisfying to observe the ways that many of our programs intersect. For example, our MBA students support the Tuck Business Bridge program as Tuck MBA Fellows and they can also learn from and support the entrepreneurs and leaders in our Diversity Business Programs by partnering with them to work on special projects such as business and strategic plans thanks to the opportunities such as the First Year Project (FYP) led by Director Becky Rice-Mesec, the Diversity Business Entrepreneurship Collaboration Program, and the work and advocacy of Joseph Gerakos, senior associate dean for innovation and growth and Daniella Reichstetter T’07, clinical professor of business administration and faculty advisor of the Tuck Center for Entrepreneurship.

The range of executive, professional, and non-degree programs allows our faculty to continue to share their talent, time, and research with ambitious practitioners, and young leaders of tomorrow. They also give a diverse array of folks the opportunity to continue to develop in their professional pursuits, learn new skills, and gain access to one of the best institutions of higher education in the world. What all of these programs have in common is that they seek to push the boundaries of collaboration, co-creation, and bringing diverse people and perspectives together to leverage the unique gifts and talents we all bring to the table.

Wishing You Well,

Dia

Dia Draper (she/her)
Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Many Voices. One Tuck. 

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are delighted to share with you the calendar of events for Dartmouth’s upcoming celebration of Dr. King’s life. This year’s events begin on January 14 and run until early February. This year’s celebration theme, “Building a Compassionate Community,” focuses on Dr. King’s leadership in the civil rights movement, and the ongoing power and impact of his legacy. Dr. King addressed social inequalities and injustices and has been one of the most inspirational leaders in history.

Join us on Monday, January 16 in Stell Hall between 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. for a BSAT-, Office of the Dean-, and MBAPO-sponsored coffee and cocoa break and a chance to hear Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech broadcast throughout the day.

We encourage all of you to visit the full calendar of events and the Tuck DEI events calendar.

Tuck Welcomes Kayanat Paracha to the DEI Team

Kayanat Paracha (she/her/hers) joins the Tuck School of Business as the Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this role Kayanat will lead strategic implementation of key priorities, community engagement, and program development and assessment. Kayanat joined Dartmouth College in June of 2019 and most recently served as an Assistant Dean within the Office of Pluralism and Leadership (OPAL). In her role, she was the institutional lead for Pan Asian Student Advising and OPAL Education programs. 

Kayanat earned a BA in Anthropology, with a minor in Women’s Studies from DePauw University, and an M.S.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Indiana University Bloomington. During her time at IU Bloomington, she served as a Graduate Assistant for the Community and Leadership Development Center in Residential Programs and Services. Additionally, she completed a summer internship as a Graduate Assistant for the Business Emerging Leaders Programs for the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining Dartmouth, Kayanat was a Program Coordinator at the Posse Foundation in Chicago. 

Tuck Mental Health & Wellness Initiative Update

With sponsorship from Sally Jaeger, Associate Dean of the MBA Program, this fall, a group of Tuck students began the process of completing two intensive training courses to become certified as Peer Support Counselors. First, Peer Support Counselors completed Suicide Prevention training, designed to help participants develop and hone skills to help support others in crisis or distress. Through a combination of didactic and experiential learning opportunities, participants acquired skills to enable them to: identify warning signs of someone who is struggling, understand the role of empathy when helping someone in crisis, connect people in need to resources, and learn effective communication skills.

Next, Peer Support Counselors complete an eight-hour Mental Health First Aid skills-based training course that educated participants about mental health and substance-use issues. Through a combination of interactive role-play, exercises, and class participation, MHFA training taught students how to recognize symptoms of mental health problems, offer help and guide a person toward appropriate treatments and other supports.

Thank you to the MHWI co-chairs Charles Kuchenbrod, Elyse Curtis, Greg Germann, Nathan Busam, Pranali Sabale, and to the students who are in the process of becoming Tuck Peer Support Counselors. View more information about Mental Health and Wellness resources at Tuck.

28th Annual Tuck Diversity Conference Recap

The 28th annual Tuck Diversity Conference (affectionately known as “DivCo”) convened in September with over 80 talented prospective applicants joining us in Hanover for a weekend of information, inspiration, and connection. Many thanks to our keynote speaker, Justin Rodriguez T’13 managing director, partner, and head of Black, Latinx, & Indigenous Recruiting at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Perennial favorites include the “Tuck Unplugged” session led by Tuck Association of Diverse Alumni (TADA) co-chair Ramsey Jay, Jr. T’05, Tuck’s popular small group dinners, an alumni career panel, industry panel sessions and coffee chats, and the annual Blacklight Party hosted by Black Students Association at Tuck (BSAT).

The Tuck Admissions team also invited several coaches from one of our partner organizations, MLT (Management Leadership for Tomorrow) to join us in Hanover for the weekend. The coaches had the chance to meet with several students and administrators to better understand the Tuck culture, demystify the Upper Valley, and cheer on several MLT alumni who are current students as well as prospective applicants to the Tuck class of 2025!

We thank the entire Tuck community for helping us welcome prospective future students, and a particularly warm congratulations and thank you to the 2022 co-chairs—T’23s Divya Bobra, Penny Chen, Anurag Gupta, Andrew Key, Devu Nair, and Daniel Yang. The 2022 DivCo theme was “Seeds of Community,” and centered the opportunity for all of us to reflect on and share what makes Tuck such a transformative experience. Read a recap from the co-chairs here.

18th Annual Women in Business Conference Recap

In October the 18th annual Women in Business Conference welcomed 90+ attendees from all over the world to Tuck’s campus for a two-day immersion into the Tuck MBA experience, including mock classes, workshops, panel discussions, networking and development opportunities, along with social activities, and small group dinners.

This year’s conference featured keynote speakers Rena Harper T’09, global people leader and executive coach, and Valeria Aloe T’04, a speaker, award-winning author of Uncolonized Latinas: Transforming Our Mindsets and Rising Together, and the founder of the Rising Together Movement. Both distinguished alumnae were able to speak to the 2022 conference them “Courageous Leadership” by sharing stories that were personal, vulnerable, relatable and authentic. Their words and presence set the tone for a weekend of real talk and honest conversation about the opportunities and challenges facing women considering the MBA degree as well as women’s workforce experiences and equity in corporate and other leadership spaces.

One of Tuck’s MBA prospective applicant partners, the Forte Foundation, also hosted their annual Diversity Day the same weekend. Dean Draper was invited to join a distinguished panel of peers for a virtual Business School Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Roundtable event addressing the question: What are our business schools doing to ensure classrooms and communities are more equitable and inclusive for students?

Many thanks to the 2022 WIBC co-chairs—T’23s Lynsey Kirby, Stefanie Nifenecker, Pranali Sabale, and Sherry Yang—for their vision, leadership and commitment to advancing representation in business education. The Tuck leadership team appreciates the contributions of all the students, staff, faculty, partners, and alumni that made the 2022 WIB conference a success.

DE&I Student Co-Chair Corner

T’23 Jahnavi Muppaneni is excited to welcome T’24 Allie Coukos as her incoming DEI co-chair. Allie is originally from Newton, MA and graduated from George Washington University in Washington, DC in 2018. Prior to Tuck, Allie spent the last four years at Deloitte Consulting where she was a member of its Government & Public Services practice, specifically working with clients in the national security and intelligence space. Since coming to Tuck, Allie has become an active member of our Tuck Pride community and has truly enjoyed taking advantage of all things Tuck, from networking with engaged venture capital alumni to hiking in the Upper Valley. Allie can’t wait to contribute to all the incredible DEI work that Tuck has started and help establish Tuck as a leader in DEI.

Update on the Tuck Association of Diverse Alumni (TADA)

In June 2022, TADA held their inaugural TADA Conference in New York City. Programming centered around the conference’s theme of Leadership 3.0: Leading with Empathy and Diversity. The goal was to provide an engaging day of speakers and networking opportunities with a focus on advancing dialogue, sharing best practices, and supporting the diversity, equity, and inclusion goals of organizations, leaders, and teams. A special thank you goes out to keynote speaker Jose Minaya T’00, Tuck faculty presenters, and distinguished alumni panelists.

Whether you were able to attend this year’s conference or not, TADA is keen to hear your thoughts about what they should be planning for next year, including location, dates, and content. If you could take 30 seconds to complete this brief survey, that would be greatly appreciated!

Pam Scott T’75 Honored with Tuck Distinguished Achievement Medal

During the 2022 Investiture Ceremony, Dean Slaughter presented the Tuck Distinguished Achievement Medal to Pamela C. Scott T’75 in recognition of her outstanding service to the Tuck community. Pam is the founder, president, and CEO of LVCC, Inc., a management consulting firm, and an active member of numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. She is notably, the first Black woman to graduate from Tuck’s MBA program. For more details on her impressive impact at Tuck and beyond, view her honorary citation. 

Tuck Welcomes Lawrence Mur’ray 

We’d like to welcome Tuck’s new Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, Lawrence Mur’ray! Lawrence has more than 20 years of leadership experience in MBA admissions at several top business schools and brings deep industry knowledge acquired through his service to the broader business education community. We look forward to partnering with Lawrence on future DEI initiatives! Read more about Lawrence.

Hispanic Heritage Month

In celebration of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month, members of the Tuck community reflected on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions as part of our ongoing series Many Voices, One Tuck.⁠

• Many Voices, One Tuck: Meet Hilde Tineo T’24, Luis Gonzalo Zegarra T’23 & Edwin Aguilar T’23
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Meet Fresia Blanco T’24, Andres Sada Zambrano T’23 & Calvin Garay T’23
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Meet Hazem Ibrahim T’23 & Fernando Leyva MHCDS’23
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Valeria Brito Barbosa T’24, Chris Alvarez T’23 & Nicolas Rizo Patron T’23
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Jeffrey Williams Navarro T’23, Christopher Estrella T’24 & Adrian Rodriguez T’23
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Professor José Alvarez, Valeria Aloe T’04 & Tuck Executive Education’s Miguel Ramirez
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Jack Vann T’24, Jennifer Chacon Salas T’24 & Andrew Key T’23

LGBTQIA+ History Month

Tuck Pride student club members led the celebration of LGBTQIA+ History Month & the Transgender Week of Awareness by hosting their annual Ask Me Anything (AMA) panel. The popular AMA format aims to create a safe, judgement free space where students can share their stories and questions without fear in an effort to co-create and model environments where listening, learning, and sharing facilitate empathy and awareness. The Tuck Pride leaders sweetened the deal with treats and Tuck Pride stickers. 

• Many Voices, One Tuck: Meet Mitch Jacobs T’23 & Xiangyu Zhao T’23
• Many Voices, One Tuck: Meet Aaron Carrillo T’23, Allison Paul T’23 & Daniel Yang T’23

Movember

Tuck has a strong tradition of supporting the Movember foundation. The Movember Foundation is the leading foundation dedicated to changing the face of men’s health through targeted funding of local projects that focus on: mental health and suicide prevention, prostate and testicular cancer treatment, research, and support. Read a reflection from the 2022 Tuck Movember team.

Low-Income & First-Generation at Tuck (LIFT)

LIFT (Low-Income & First-Generation at Tuck) is a newly-founded affinity group that seeks to build a community of students who identify as first-generation college students or have a low-income background, and allies thereof. The group strives to provide resources to enable academic and professional success and create meaningful discussions for first-generation or low-income students to share progress and contribute back to society. In a recent blog post, LIFT cofounders Alan Rice T’23 and Jonathan Diaz T’22 share how their experiences as low-income, first-generation students inspired them to build a community for Tuckies of similar backgrounds.

Where have they gone? Where are those real conversations about who we are as people, how we became the person we became, the journeys we’re on, the kind of career we’re crafting? Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management at Tuck, found himself asking these questions before launching The Sydcast in 2019. The podcast, which features intimate and informative conversations with an array of guests, was inspired by this desire for deeper storytelling and human connection.

In each episode, Professor Finkelstein sits down with entrepreneurs, community leaders, professional athletes, politicians, academics, authors, musicians, and more—including many members of the Tuck community. Listen to some recent conversations with Tuck alumni guests, as they discuss everything from a bottom-up approach to problem-solving to competing with Google Translate.

This past summer I worked at the Maine Venture Fund (MVF) in Portland, Maine—a social impact venture capital company focused on investments in Maine-based companies. My experience included two different types of work: conducting internal VC fund activities and helping a portfolio company achieve one of its key strategic growth projects.

As part of my work for MVF, I came to understand all parts of the venture deal process. This included attending meetings with Maine-based entrepreneurs, scoping their business plans, and reviewing their financial models. What is the market size opportunity for the company’s product? What impact are they creating (e.g., economic growth in rural areas, environmental)? How do they plan on scaling and growing their business? This culminated in contributing to writing an investment memo for the board of directors with our proposal to pursue more detailed diligence in the company, which the board then voted on.

Other projects included researching VC funds across various sectors to build their co-investor database as well as helping plan the Maine Venture Fund startup challenge– a competition organized by MVF to help students develop business plans and pursue entrepreneurship. Additionally, as part of the internship, MVF cared about us learning about all aspects of the venture capital industry, which meant hosting weekly knowledge-sharing sessions on key aspects of the venture deal process (e.g., cap tables, fundraising, term sheets, etc.) and reading Venture Deals.

In addition to working directly with the MVF investors, I worked on a strategic project for an ed-tech portfolio company. The portfolio company was exploring diversifying from its base of college/university clients into business-to-business accounts. My role was to identify and develop product expansions into the employer market as a growth opportunity for the company. My project began by researching the challenges employees face regarding belonging and inclusion in the workplace. I leveraged this research to conduct user interviews with large Maine-based employers across various industries (e.g., insurance, legal, banking, etc.) Our goal was to understand current pain points across recruiting, employee engagement, and retention. Ultimately my research and interviews culminated in several employers being interested in participating in the pilot launch of the new product.

Lastly, one of the main benefits of working at MVF was living in Portland and exploring Maine while taking advantage of the great food (lobster rolls!) and coffee shops. I saw a Portland Seadogs game (minor league baseball) and visited lighthouses in a few coastal towns. We also had team outings in downtown Portland exploring the eastern promenade and hiking in Biddeford.

Overall, I learned a lot this summer about the intersection of social impact and the venture capital industry through my time at MVF. This was a really rewarding experience that could not have been possible without the funding I received from Tuck Gives.

In August 2021, the week before Tuck classes started, I joined a pre-orientation trip and sailed along Maine’s coastline. My boatmates and I woke up every day at 5:00 am for a swim, learned to row and sail in sunny and rainy weather, and slept under the stars. This was a daunting trip for me to embark on; after one year of working from home, I was nervous about entering the business school community and taking on the physical challenge of the excursion. I got through the sailing adventure thanks to the exceptional teammates I found among Tuckies, and gained close friends, an admiration for New England’s stunning nature, and a renewed spirit of confidence in exploring areas of interest during business school.

It’s fitting that my first year at Tuck culminated with a return to Maine and an internship opportunity in a sector that is entirely new to me: impact-focused venture capital.

How did I secure an internship with a venture capital firm? I came to business school without any prior experience or coursework in finance; I honestly didn’t think an impact investing fund would have a job for me, but I was curious about the sector.

After four and half years of consulting for U.S. federal, state, and non-profit organizations, I chose to go to business school to learn how to design and manage great public services. Venture capital creates access to significant financial resources that could fuel social-mission-driven organizations.

My curiosity about the sector spun into many questions: How do you decide which start-ups to invest in? How do you ensure your investments are sustainable from a financial, environmental, and community perspective? How do you measure the impact achieved by company investments? Tuck brought dozens of speakers and organizations to campus that presented their approaches to these subjects. When I spoke with the team at Maine Venture Fund—a state-backed venture capital group that supports an inclusive economic development agenda through investments in start-ups—I immediately knew this was an organization I wanted to learn from as a summer intern.

Tuck’s first-year curriculum gave me exposure to core concepts in strategy, organizational management, and impact investing that prepared me to recruit for the internship, Tuck’s alumni introduced me to the organization, and the Center for Business, Government and Society offered me a Tuck GIVES scholarship that made my MVF internship possible.

What was it like to be an intern at Maine Venture Fund? Maine Venture Fund (MVF)’s location is in Portland, Maine (which if you haven’t visited yet, should be at the top of your list of places to see in the Northeast). Every day, I biked to work with a view of the ocean, took in the smell of salt air from the front steps of the office, and met individuals who were generous with their time and energy to introduce me to Maine’s thriving start-up economy.

MVF’s team hosted twice weekly workshops to teach me and my co-intern, Eda, the basics of the industry. We spent hours discussing deal terms and their meanings, conducting due diligence on potential investments, analyzing the social impact metrics of companies, presenting content to the MVF Board, and diving into topics of interest for me and Eda to gain a well-rounded view of the industry. When we weren’t working, we enjoyed lunches at Portland’s many foodie destinations and swapped stories about playing watersports and hiking over the weekends.

In addition to offering an introduction to venture capital, MVF invited me to spend two-thirds of my time working directly with a portfolio company. I had the opportunity to work on product strategy with MEDRhythms, a Series B digital therapeutics group that helps individuals with neurological injuries learn to walk again through music therapy technology.

Over the 10-week internship, I met with people across the start-up with expertise in software engineering, user experience, medical device regulation, product commercialization, clinical music therapy, and applied research in cognitive sciences to learn from their perspectives on product strategy. I had the unique chance to observe a therapy session for a stroke patient who was walking with the aid of a MEDRhythms music therapist, and I tested MEDRhythms’ prototype devices before they hit the market.

After weeks of conversations and brainstorming sessions, I pitched a product line extension strategy to MEDRhythms’ leadership. I was proud of the final work and exhilarated by the process of developing a business strategy—opening the door to a new potential career interest post-Tuck.

What did I gain from this internship? I ended the summer with a more expansive understanding of the venture capital industry, state economic development, the work of start-ups, and a great love for the city of Portland and state of Maine.

This internship taught me that my curiosity and fresh eyes are welcome assets to the workplace, including in a sector that’s new to me. The teams I joined at MVF and MEDRhythms made me feel comfortable bringing my whole self to work and calling Maine home. Between afternoon trips to get ice cream, morning bike rides to local coffee roasteries and lighthouses, pick-up basketball games, team hikes along waterfront trails, and a community theatre outing, I made memories with my colleagues in Portland that I’ll continue to treasure.

I’m excited about what I’ll learn by bringing these new experiences with me to my second year of the Tuck MBA program. I can’t wait for my next visit to Maine, to catch up with former colleagues and new friends about the growing opportunities in the start-up ecosystem in Portland, and to continue pursuing my passion for social impact in new and interesting ways.

For years, the Tuck School has generously waived the application fees for active members of the U.S. military, U.S. military veterans, graduates of the Tuck Business Bridge program, and upon request for those facing financial hardship or those involved with the Forté MBALaunch program. Today, we are officially announcing an expansion of our application fee waiver. 

Starting immediately fee waivers will automatically be extended to all first-generation college graduates in addition to members of the U.S. military, U.S. veterans, and Tuck Business Bridge alumni. 

Fee waivers upon request will now be expanded to include:

• Need-based—Those experiencing hardship with an explanation of their current financial situation. 
• Access Members*
• AmeriCorp Members* (within the last 5 years)
• Citizens of countries on the United Nation’s list of “Least Developed Countries” 
• Forté MBALaunch Program Participants* 
• Fulbright Scholars*
• Alumni (within the last 5 years) and Current Graduate Students of Dartmouth College
• Alumni (within the last 5 years) and Current Graduate Students of Accredited Historically Black Colleges or Universities
• Alumni (within the last 5 years) and Current Graduate Students of Women’s College Coalition Member Schools
• Alumni (within the last 5 years) and Current Graduate Students of Tribal Colleges and Universities
• Alumni (within the last 5 years) and Current Graduate Students of Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities Member Schools 
• JumpStart Network Members*
• Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) MBA Prep Fellows* 
• Peace Corps Volunteers* (within the last 5 years)
• Posse Scholars*
• Rhodes Scholars * 
• Riordan MBA Fellows*
• Toigo MBA Program Participants*
• Teach For America Alumni* (within the last 5 years)

*Requires official documentation with your personal information verifying affiliation and/or membership. 

Our intent in expanding Tuck’s application fee waiver is to eliminate barriers for aspiring leaders who may otherwise not take a chance on themselves and apply to Tuck. We want to help these individuals envision themselves as part of our remarkable learning community. 

Fee Refunds for Submitted Applications
As we care deeply about the applicant experience at Tuck, fee waivers—or rather fee refund requests—will be made available to those who already applied in the 2022–2023 cycle, paid the application fee, and would have been eligible for a waiver per the new criteria above. This includes all Round 1 applicants, regardless of their admissions decision, and those who have already applied in our Round 2. Refunds will not be processed automatically. Applicants must request a refund by completing this form. Tuck Admissions will process fee waiver refund requests for those eligible until 5:00 p.m. (ET) on May 26, 2023. 

Fee Waivers for Those Still to Apply
For those who have not yet applied in Round 2 or are planning to apply in Round 3: fee waivers will process automatically for first-generation college graduates, members of the U.S. military, U.S. veterans, and Tuck Business Bridge alumni. Fee waiver requests will need to be received no later than two days prior to the application deadline. Applicants requesting a fee waiver need to complete this form. 

If you are applying in Round 2, have not yet submitted your application, are eligible to request a fee waiver, and would prefer to receive the waiver before applying (rather than later filing for a refund), your waiver request must be submitted before 5:00 p.m. (ET) on January 2, 2023. Due to the holiday break, waiver requests will be processed on January 3. Round 2 applications are due on January 4. 

If you are applying in Round 3 and are eligible to request a fee waiver, your waiver request must be submitted before 5:00 p.m. (ET) on March 25, 2023. Waiver requests for Round 3 will be processed on a rolling basis. Round 3 applications are due on March 27. 

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My experience prior to Tuck spans regions, demography, and types of schools. I’ve been fortunate to recruit students for and hold leadership positions at schools in Arizona, Indiana, North Carolina, and New York—and along the way I’ve met amazing prospective students. The applicants Tuck draws are incredibly impressive. Ours is a strong pool. And yet, in our travels and through our experiences, my colleagues and I are aware that there are prospective applicants for whom Tuck’s mission and values are deeply resonant that count themselves out and ultimately don’t put in their application. For those eligible per the list above: the fee is waived, take your shot, dare to see yourself at Tuck. We see you here.

In October, LGBTQ+ Tuck students like myself headed to the in-person ROMBA (Reaching Out MBA) Conference in Washington DC. We had the chance to connect with old friends, make new LGBTQ+ friends at other peer MBA programs, and interact with Tuck LGBTQ+ alumni. ROMBA’s mission is to increase the influence of the LGBT+ community in business by educating, inspiring, and connecting MBA students and alumni. Tuck plays a vital role in developing LGBTQ+ wise, decisive leaders that better the world through business.

Tuck supports our LGBTQ+ community by being a partner school with ROMBA, granting a fellowship for students that identify as LGBTQ+ and that have shown leadership for the community. Moreover, our school is quite unique among the top business schools, supporting ROMBA attendees with paid lunch sessions prior to the conference to discuss how to make the most out of it and providing financial assistance for LGBTQ+ students to attend the conference. Tuck truly embraces our LGBTQ+ community as part of its DEI goals.

The ROMBA conference has a robust program that connects, educates, and mentors LGBTQ+ MBAs to be better-prepared leaders in the business world, while also providing the tools necessary for people to feel more comfortable being “out.” The conference includes:

1. Breakout sessions: to bring perspectives about different career paths 
2. Receptions for ROMBA Fellows and conference volunteers: to connect with speakers, MBA students, and staff, fostering social and professional relationships
3. Interview opportunities and career fairs: to connect MBA talent with prospective employers in both traditional and non-traditional career paths—including investment banking, private equity, consulting, tech, general management, consumer goods, and more
4. Industry competitions: to give students an opportunity to gain exposure to different careers and connect with potential future employers
5. Diverse perspective leadership sessions: to discuss and connect individuals across the many lenses of diversity

My favorite part of the ROMBA conference was connecting with other LGBTQ+ MBAs. ROMBA allowed us to connect with fellow students from all over the world, making us feel like we are not alone in our MBA journey.

During the conference, I had also the pleasure of being a session director for Day in the Life: Finance, where panelists conversed in a casual manner with current LGBTQ+ MBAs about the different paths MBAs can pursue in the financial industry. Attendees were able to connect with current employees and recruiters at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, UBS, Amazon, Exxon Mobil, and Walker & Dunlop.

Lastly, as a ROMBA Fellow and one of the co-chairs of Tuck Pride, I would encourage prospective applicants to visit the Tuck Pride website, touch base with Tuck Ambassadors affiliated with Tuck Pride, and apply for the Reaching Out Fellowship, where you can demonstrate your interest in obtaining the ROMBA Fellowship prior to submitting your application to Tuck.

We also encourage anyone to reach out to the Tuck Pride members—we want to make you feel welcome in our safe community. We understand that everyone is in a different place in their journey as an LGBTQ+ individual, and we treat any conversation with alums and current and prospective LGBTQ+ students as private and confidential. 

The Movember Foundation is the leading charity supporting men’s health, funding thousands of projects focused on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, and suicide prevention. Fundraising participants typically grow mustaches, promote conversation about men’s health issues, and fundraise for the foundation’s highly targeted and interdisciplinary work.

This year’s Tuck Team is composed of 15 current Tuck students and one recent alum—Mike Clement T’22, an 11-year-long fundraiser for the foundation. While growing a mustache is part of the fun, these Tuck community members each have personal motivations for participating.

Team captain: Kenan Sakarcan T’23

My motivations are rooted in two close friendships: a college roommate and lifelong friend discovered cancer during their freshman year, had to receive rapid treatment, and was wheelchair-bound for months after. Another close friend and skiing partner recently won a five-year battle with stage IV prostate cancer.

Their courage in facing these challenges, the realization that life is short and a gift, and my belief in the power of being there for friends through challenges made it an easy decision to support the foundation and be part of the team at Tuck. For the community at Tuck and beyond, we want to represent these health issues that affect men—especially in marginalized communities—and communicate that, from a mental health perspective, it is okay to not be okay and then empower people to speak up and be there for one another.

Ian Doran T’23

Why on earth am I (of all people) (attempting) to grow a mustache and fundraise? Because Movember is a leading charity fighting to combat a slew of men’s health maladies. From mental health and suicide prevention (‘been there, done that’) to testicular cancer (runs in the family), Movember is aiming to change the face of men’s health, and I am eager to join in the fight. By donating you’ll help me ensure more men have the same access to life-saving care my family members and I have been fortunate enough to receive.

Sam Haws T’23

For far too long, vulnerability in the men’s health space has been collectively seen as weak and emasculating. In reality, men face a multitude of unique issues across mental health, certain forms of cancer, and more, and the fear of appearing weak has only exacerbated these problems by making male-identified folks less willing to confront them. Depression, suicidal ideation, and untreated cancer cases remain prevalent issues.

By growing these silly little mustaches and fundraising across our networks, we can make a dent financially and personally by starting vulnerable conversations and normalizing these topics. We deeply appreciate the Tuck community’s support!

Max Eberhardt T’24

I’m part of the Movember team because bringing light to the men’s mental health crisis is far more important than my appearance this month! Four out of five suicides are men and suicide is the second leading cause of death among men ages 15–44. By participating in Movember, I want to increase awareness and help change the stigma surrounding men’s mental health.

Ryan Fischer T’24, Tuck Veteran (Air Force)

I’ve seen a lot of my buddies in the military struggle with the stigma around seeking help when dealing with PTSD from their service. They bear the burden alone, in silence, because of the stigma that seeking help will negatively affect their careers and their ability to support their families. Anything that I can do to help remove that stigma is a worthwhile cause.

Mike Clement T’22

I was a part of a hockey culture that thought growing mustaches as a team would be hilarious and great for locker room camaraderie. A few years later, between my own battles with mental health following concussion issues and losing a close friend to suicide, I began to truly understand its importance. The mustaches grown during the month of Movember remind us of the significant impact having real conversations about mental health can have. Although we have a long way to go, I’m grateful for the continuously changing perception of mental health, the stigma surrounding it, and the amazing work Movember has done to change it.

Reach out to a friend today to check in. Send a text. Make a call. Have a conversation. Tell those you care about that you love them and that you are there for them. Life is short—don’t be afraid to speak up. You are never alone.

Learn more about student health and wellness at Tuck and Dartmouth.

Mariana Candela T’24 

Who should consider attending DivCo in the future? What piece of advice do you have for those considering it?
If you’ve been in a room full of people and felt like you stood out because of something that makes you unique, you should come to DivCo! Even if you are nervous about the idea of New Hampshire or just starting to learn about business schools and are curious about Tuck, apply to DivCo! It is a great opportunity to learn about what a supportive community looks like. 

Did you attend DivCo when you were considering Tuck? If yes, what were your key takeaways?
As an applicant, I was able to attend DivCo virtually [during COVID]. I loved hearing from first- and second-year students about their experiences—it really helped me get a sense of what the day-to-day would look like for me at Tuck. That being said, my favorite part of the weekend was listening to Dean Dia Draper speak. It was awesome to see how much she cares about the Tuck community; it made me feel like I would be able to find a space for myself.  

Why did you choose to volunteer at DivCo?
Since I attended DivCo virtually last year, this time around I knew I wanted to experience DivCo in person and volunteering was a great opportunity to do so. I loved meeting the applicants, sharing my experience with them, and answering questions. Above all, I really loved seeing how applicants were getting to know each other and making connections. It was clear that no matter where each of the applicants end up (hopefully here at Tuck!), the connections they built at DivCo will turn into real friendships. It was like watching a really great and diverse network take shape before my eyes! 

Venise Crawford T’24 

Did you attend DivCo when you were considering Tuck? If yes, what were your key takeaways?
I attended DivCo in 2021 when I was considering Tuck. I had attended plenty of virtual Tuck events but wanted to experience the campus in person. I’m glad I came because it confirmed that Tuck was the right fit for me. It also confirmed that the strong sense of community that Tuck is known for is real and palpable. My main takeaway from attending DivCo was that everyone I met—students, faculty, staff—seemed genuinely excited to be at Tuck, and for me, this was the best evidence of a strong MBA program.

Why did you choose to volunteer at DivCo?
I chose to volunteer at DivCo because I remember how impactful the weekend was for me when I attended as a prospective student one year ago. When I came for DivCo in 2021, I remember there were Tuck students at every turn who were excited to share their Tuck experience and answer any questions I had. I wanted to be one of those Tuckies for attendees this year. It was inspiring to meet prospective students, hear their stories, and feel like I could contribute in whatever small way to their MBA application and decision journey.   

Luke Southwell-Chan T’24 

Who should consider attending DivCo in the future? What piece of advice do you have for those considering it?
If you’re interested in Tuck, I’d encourage you to attend DivCo! No website or conversation alone will help you know if a business school is the right choice. Tuck is an amazing place, but to understand why Tuckies are so in love with it, you need to visit the Upper Valley. I equate it to college visits during high school to see which one "feels" right. And for Tuck, I think that’s even more true.  

Visiting Tuck through DivCo affords the opportunity to experience campus life, connect with students from diverse backgrounds, and get a glimpse into what makes the Tuck community so unique.  

Why did you choose to volunteer at DivCo?
Throughout my application process, I received so much insight and support from the Tuckies before me; I wanted to be able to provide the same to those who follow. Through DivCo, I was able to serve as another touchpoint for prospective students to understand what Tuck has to offer.

In honor of Veterans Day, Tuck Women in Business highlights Tuck women who have served or continue to serve in the military. Below, get to know Sarah Blatt T’21 who graduated from the United States Military Academy in 2007 and commissioned into the Army as a military intelligence officer.

The mission of Tuck’s Women in Business Club is to foster a community that enables women to achieve personal and professional success. To this end, WIB provides mentoring, networking, and career development throughout the Tuck experience. We also host an annual conference for prospective and current students, alumni, faculty and staff. 

Sarah Blatt T’21

Current Role: Associate, McKinsey & Company
Role in the Military: Military Intelligence Officer, U.S. Army

Why did you choose to pursue an MBA?

I chose to pursue an MBA because I felt it was the path to open up options for me professionally and for my family to build the life we wanted. I needed a bridge to level up the skill set I didn’t get from my previous experience in wine sales or the army. I felt like the MBA would give me a network that would make me attractive to employers I otherwise would probably not be on the radar of. I felt that the Tuck MBA would give me a network I could lean on for mentorship and sponsorship for the rest of my career. It was just time for me to learn. I had been in direct sales. I learned a lot about wine. I knew a lot about army intelligence and army aviation. But ultimately, I was ready for a new learning challenge and to get back into a classroom with really intelligent people on subjects I knew nothing about. It was an exciting path to take.

What ultimately led you to choosing Tuck?

I found out about Tuck from an army reserve buddy in San Diego. So, when I was selling wine in San Diego, I was still in the army reserves. We had a drill weekend once a month, and I came in on a Saturday, and I was just really frustrated. Professionally, I felt like I was waking up every day starting at 0 on 100% commission, which was exhausting. I’m the kind of person who always looks for a solution, and I just didn’t have one. This friend of mine said to me, “hey, I just got back from a program called ‘Next Step’ at the Tuck School of Business” I replied, “oh, that’s cool - what’s Tuck?” He told me about Next Step, an immersive two-week executive education program designed especially for veterans, Olympic athletes, and professional athletes transitioning from those career fields and hoping to get into business. I ended up applying for the program and was accepted.

I came to Tuck for the first time in March 2018. As part of the Next Step program, there was a career day. I was astounded by two things. Firstly, the number of Tuck alums that were incredibly senior at companies like McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, and Kaiser Health and who took the time to come back to campus to talk to us. It really underscored for me how much Tuckies care for each other, even those who have only touched the community for two weeks. Secondly, I saw veterans represented. I saw people just like me who had spent the last ten years of their lives at war and didn’t have any business skills, but here they were. It was then that I thought, if they can do it, I can do it. And the way that they did it was by coming to Tuck through the full-time MBA program. Tuck was the only MBA program that I applied to. I put all my eggs in this basket, and thankfully it worked out. Not a recommended strategy, but I am very appreciative of the fact that it landed.

How did your experience in the military contribute to your success at Tuck?

From my time in the army, there are two things that I go back to when I think about this question. The first one is that as an intelligence officer in the special operations community, I definitely had more days than I would like to remember, where there was just far too much for me to do compared to the number of minutes in the day. Tuck intentionally creates a similar experience to this. It’s designed to make you decide and choose things, so I felt I came into the MBA experience confident in my time management skills. I felt confident saying that I knew there would be things I wouldn’t get to do and that there would be things I would fail at because of prioritizing other things. I know it wouldn’t be an accident and that it was a decision I would make and own. I felt confident in that very early on in the MBA experience because it reminded me a lot of being in the army.

The other aspect is more people. I have to be honest; I don’t feel like I have a perfect way to describe it. I think words like leadership, adaptability, and working well in ambiguous situations are all my experiences in the army. But how that actually came to life in my business school experience? I’m not sure, but I feel like it did. Because of who I am as a woman and a veteran, I formed strong friendships quickly with a diverse group of people. My time in the military helped me be comfortable in my own skin, allowed me to relate to others, and meet them wherever they were at the time.

I was very blessed and honored to be our class graduation speaker. And I put so much thought into that speech trying to answer this question that you have articulated: why would they choose me? Even after that reflection, I still don’t really have the words to describe how much of a blessing my military background is, even the really hard, difficult, painful moments of that background. It shaped who I am.

I was also exposed to loss and losing friends in the military, which kind of makes you grow up. I was already one of the oldest people in my class. But I came into Tuck with a sincere empathy for people. It’s like Harry Potter; they could only see the thestrals pulling the carriages once they had seen death. It’s a nice sort of visual analogy because there is this other tier or layer to yourself that is suddenly available to you. And I think that I was able to connect with people on levels differently than I might have otherwise had I not experienced the things I have.

In addition to pursuing your MBA at Tuck, you were also raising your daughter. What was it like balancing these changes in your personal and professional life?

Well, I doubled down on the time management thing. I didn’t play tripod, which felt sacrilegious at the time. In some ways, being a parent made certain choices really easy since my boundary was clear. I have a daughter and a husband whose lives I want to be a part of. So that means saying no to some things. And it made other things that much more special. I still remember the joy in my daughter’s eyes getting to walk around Stell Hall for the Tiny Tuckie Halloween Parade. And how much she was exposed to getting to know all the other kids whose parents were also in school. I love that she has these memories now.

I will also add I was one of two student moms. We were able to build a community, but it still felt lonely at times. I think the experience helped me even now as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. I’ve had repetition at articulating and giving voice to what it is that I need to be at my best. And one of the things for me that is non-negotiable is that I have to feel connected to my daughter, which means I need to shut my laptop, log off, and be present. Going through the educational process, the recruiting process, and still being a present mom was like two years of training ahead of this lifestyle of being a consultant.

What would you tell other veterans or active duty members who are considering a MBA?

Do it. Sometimes it can feel like you don’t bring anything to the table while sitting around a study group. You’re like, wow, one person was an investment banker, the other worked in consulting, and another has a deep background in biotech and pharma. And you feel like you’re only going to be able to buy pizza for the rest of the group. At least, that is how I felt, but it wasn’t the case. Military experience adds so much value. It impacts you; it affects who you are on teams.

I’d also tell others to commit to the growth mindset. I think we come in and have had extensive leadership experiences, so we know what we know well. But you come to business school to expand the aperture of what you know, so lean into that as much as you can. You are going to learn things that you didn’t even know that you didn’t know.

Sarah graduated from the United States Military Academy in 2007 and commissioned into the Army as a military intelligence officer. She served six years on active-duty service in support of aviation units based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Sarah deployed multiple times including five trips to Afghanistan as a task force member of the Army’s Special Operations Aviation Regiment. In 2013, she transitioned from active duty and moved to California to begin a career in the wine world while continuing to serve in the Army Reserves in strategic intelligence units. In 2019, Sarah decided to pursue a full-time MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. After graduation she will join the McKinsey & Company Boston office. Sarah lives in White River Junction, VT with her husband, Mike, and daughter, Grace. Together they enjoy cooking, movie-quotes, mountains & rivers.

In honor of Veterans Day, Tuck Women in Business highlights Tuck women who have served or continue to serve in the military. Below, get to know Allie Hundley T’24 who served seven years as a Navy officer.

The mission of Tuck’s Women in Business Club is to foster a community that enables women to achieve personal and professional success. To this end, WIB provides mentoring, networking, and career development throughout the Tuck experience. We also host an annual conference for prospective and current students, alumni, faculty and staff. 

Allie Hundley T’24

Pre-Tuck Role: Surface Warfare Officer, U.S. Navy
Post-Tuck Target Industry: Consulting

How has your time in the military shaped you as a leader?

During my seven years as a Navy officer, I was fortunate enough to work with amazing people to conduct complex missions on both sea and shore. A week after graduating Officer Candidate School, I was on a plane to meet my ship in Okinawa, Japan, and went underway for three weeks to the South China Sea. In the first 18 months I learned how to drive the ship, but my primary job was to lead a small division of incredibly intelligent Sailors to deploy, maintain, and operate the Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles held in our Vertical Launching System. Coming from a teaching background meant missile systems was a steep learning curve, but I relied heavily on my team, and as a cohesive unit, we ensured mission readiness through efficient and effective practices. In turn, I made it my own personal mission to be an advocate for my Sailors in whatever capacity I could provide. 

For my second assignment, I led ship-wide certification processes and mission area program management, which meant high stakes, multi-level collaboration, organization, and briefings. While often I would be the only female in the room, my role in the mission and the service to my team took precedence. After sea duty, my greatest challenge and most fulfilling assignment was as a Class Officer at Officer Training Command, Newport. Over a period of two years, with a team of senior enlisted personnel and peers, I was directly responsible to over 3600 candidates for military indoctrination and setting an example of a Navy officer. The hours were long, policies constantly changed through COVID, and my uniform and demeanor had to always exceed standards, but the intense requirements and high expectations taught me invaluable lessons concerning effective leadership. All my Navy experiences delivered constant opportunities to learn, adapt, and grow, for all of which I’m incredibly thankful as I now get to expand my opportunities at Tuck.

In honor of Veterans Day, Tuck Women in Business highlights Tuck women who have served or continue to serve in the military. Below, get to know Tuck alumni Amy Florentino T’10, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector New England, and Jen Tietz T’15 who served as a nuclear surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.

The mission of Tuck’s Women in Business Club is to foster a community that enables women to achieve personal and professional success. To this end, WIB provides mentoring, networking, and career development throughout the Tuck experience. We also host an annual conference for prospective and current students, alumni, faculty and staff. 

Amy Florentino T’10

Role at Tuck: Adjunct Professor of Management Communication and Client Project Management
Role in the Military: Commander of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Northern New England

How has your time in the military shaped you as a leader?

My time as a woman in the military has been instrumental to my personal leadership journey. Not only has the experience developed a strong work ethic and values-based leadership focus, it also made me more resilient and confident. I have been extremely lucky to have mentors and coaches from the most junior levels. I found that in the military if you are excited, humble and eager to learn; then people are excited to teach you what they know and groom you for future leadership roles regardless of gender or background. I have also been fortunate to have excellent female role models along the way including my very first shipboard Captain, Anne Ewalt, who expected excellence and rewarded those who rose to the challenge. 

Throughout the years, I have developed a personal leadership philosophy based on my experiences. Specifically, I strive to create an environment that motivates, nurtures and values each and every member of my team. I aim to further shared goals and advocate for the crew so that they can do the very best job possible. I am so proud of our team who, in a volatile and uncertain environment, continues to provide the American public with the highest level of mission excellence. Always ready to respond, we strengthen security across the maritime transportation system; protect safety of life at sea along a treacherous coast; and enhance the sustainability of the marine environment through fisheries enforcement and pollution response.

Captain Amy Florentino is the Commander of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Northern New England. She directs all Coast Guard missions across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and portions of northeastern New York, a region that includes Lake Champlain and a multi-state international maritime border. She oversees more than 600 Coast Guard members at 20 field units across the four-state region and exercises federal authority granted by law and regulation as Captain of the Port, Federal Maritime Security Coordinator, Officer in Charge Marine Inspection, and Federal On-Scene Coordinator. 

With 23 years of active-duty service, Capt. Florentino is a seasoned operator with more than nine years of sea time and multiple operational commands. Before taking command of Sector Northern New England, Florentino completed a variety of tours including Deputy Sector Sault Sainte Marie, Officer Candidate School Chief, Commanding Officer CGC Cypress and Commanding Officer CGC Katherine Walker.

Jennifer Tietz T’15

Current Roles: VP of Finance and Strategy, Simon Pearce; Tuck FYP Faculty Advisor and Leadership Coach; Founder and Principal, JTWE Consulting LLC
Role in the Military: Commander, U.S. Navy (Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer)

How did your time in the military shape you as a leader?

Leading people starting at age 22, many who were older and more experienced than I was, taught me a ton about humility, empathy, active listening, and employing a learning mindset as core tenets of solid leadership. The military is not just a day job. A Sailor’s ability to “show up” to work (especially for a long deployment) involved caring for their physical, emotional, mental, financial, relationship, and spiritual health. Frankly, any good leader, inside or outside the military, recognizes that motivating and leading requires you to take a holistic view of the people you are leading. This has shaped the leader I am and aspire to be.

Jen started her career as a Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy where she had many adventures over 13 years of active duty. She graduated from Tuck in 2015 and then spent three years with McKinsey and Company in their London and Washington DC offices where she focused on operations and organizational topics across industries.

After McKinsey, Jen spent two years working in the Tuck Career Services office helping students interested in consulting careers before forging her path as an independent/freelance consultant in 2021. She most enjoys projects with a component of helping a client team work more collaboratively.

Jen has an MBA from Tuck, a Masters in Engineering Management from Old Dominion University and a BS in Math from the U.S. Naval Academy. She lives in Vermont with her daughter and spends much of her free time traveling, gardening, raising chickens, and experimenting with new recipes.
 

In honor of Veterans Day 2022, we asked current student Kathryne Crowley T’24, a former captain in the army who spent nine years on active duty, to share more about her goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions. 

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I had the privilege of serving as a company commander for a Blackhawk helicopter company for 18 months as one of my last jobs in the army. I took command of my team a year before a scheduled combat deployment and spent the year leading up to departure building a cohesive and collaborative unit to succeed in our assigned mission. My team was very junior, and we had to work extremely hard to be prepared for the ambiguity we knew we would face overseas. We were halfway through our deployment in March of 2020, and COVID added a unique and extremely difficult element to an already tough operating environment. The biggest accomplishment of my career thus far was bringing each one of my fifty teammates home safe from combat after a challenging and dynamic deployment.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

My son just started crawling, so chasing him around the house keeps me very busy! My husband is still serving in the army and is stationed in Alabama, so I am a geographically-single mama at Tuck; just juggling school and parenthood takes up most of my time.

My little family loves everything outdoors, so the Upper Valley is a wonderful playground for us. We go on many hikes and walks, and can’t wait for ski season to start!

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

My grandfather served in the army as a Huey pilot in Vietnam; I always admired him growing up. He passed away when I was a senior in high school, and I knew that the best way to honor his legacy would be by becoming a pilot in the army.

I am so thankful for the time that I spent in the military; the lessons that I learned, friends that I made, and experiences that I had will stay with me forever. I wore my grandfather’s aviator wings on my uniform and it was so special to have a little bit of him with me while I served.

When my grandfather retired from the army, he began his second career as a financial analyst and portfolio manager. I am so excited to be at Tuck, to pivot to the business world, and continue living my grandfather’s legacy.

What’s something about you only few people know?

I played the trombone in the marching band in college.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

I think that the two most important qualities that a leader must possess are compassion and humility.

Humans are complex, emotional beings and leaders must understand that and genuinely care for the people that they lead. They must be humble enough to recognize their own personal shortfalls, and intentionally build their team with colleagues that are smarter than they are in those areas.

How did your time in the military shape you as a leader?

I spent nine years serving in the army as a Blackhawk pilot and had the privilege of leading teams of all sizes and compositions, ranging from a two-pilot helicopter crew to a one-hundred-and-fifty-person helicopter maintenance company, and everything in between. Genuine leadership is hard. People are complicated and emotional and there is never enough time or resources or equipment to accomplish the mission. And when you don’t look or sound like the people that you’re leading, it can be even harder. 

But I think that more than anything, when you feel like an outsider (as I often did as the only woman in the tent or the cockpit) you become your own worst enemy. You focus on what makes you different rather than what you bring to the table, and get stuck in your own head. And that’s never a great place to be.

I found myself doing this when I was a young lieutenant; I second-guessed myself often and assumed everyone wanted me to fail to reinforce the stereotype that women don’t belong in these types of jobs. No one ever said this to me, but my own insecurities decided it must be true. Quite frankly, it was exhausting. And it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: I spent so much time worrying about not doing well that my performance was actually poor. It was the worst kind of feedback loop.

One day it dawned on me: the male lieutenants were making the same mistakes as me, and not antagonizing over it; we were all new and just not very good yet. And that was okay! I was a woman, and that wasn’t going to change, but what I could change was my mindset. I stopped worrying about what other people thought about me, and instead focused on being the best version of myself. I worked extremely hard to be excellent; I never wanted to give anyone a reason to think that I wasn’t good enough, but I also let go of the idea that everyone was betting against me. 

Once I stopped worrying about being different, I started having a lot more fun and became much more successful. Self-sabotage is real, and I will never again allow those thoughts of inadequacy to consume my time and hold me back from anything.

Kathryne grew up in Rhode Island and earned her bachelor’s degree from Boston College. After graduation, she commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army and spent nine years on active duty flying Blackhawk helicopters all over the world. She moved to New Hampshire with her husband Matt and son Liam (7m). Kathryne’s favorite part of Tuck is the strong sense of community, Matt’s is the proximity to ski mountains, and Liam’s is the colorful trees!

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE, and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.
 

Tuck, in its idyllic and woodsy corner of New Hampshire, is perhaps the furthest one could imagine from the frenetic buzz of innovation that is Silicon Valley. However, as 29 first-year students began their journey out west on the 2022 Tech Trek, it became clear that the Tuck fabric holds just as strong on the West Coast as it does in Boston and New York City.

Tech Trek began as small, student-driven visits to technology companies for career seekers outside of the traditional consulting, investment banking, and leadership development program strongholds at Tuck. Tech Trek has evolved over the years, through iterations and the ever-expanding Tuck network, into a week-long whirlwind tour of the major technology players headquartered on the West Coast. The Trek as it stands today is a close collaboration between Career Services, Technology Club, and volunteer first-years that leverage passionate alumni from across the broad technology industry.

And passionate the Tuck alumni are.

Tuck alumni sponsored each company visit and gave our group a glimpse into the work and life at their respective companies. Each visit typically started with a tour of the office, bookended by a panel discussion with Tuckies at the company. This is where the similarities ended, as the in-person visits brought to life the diverse cultures of these companies.

In Seattle, we started the day at the Microsoft Museum, where early prototypes of the computer mouse were on display, and ended at Amazon, where a panel treated us to donuts and a rundown of Amazon’s unique value-driven culture.

Our next stop took us to the Bay Area, where we explored campus on Google’s famous rainbow bicycles, took in the wall of logos that represented Plug & Play’s enviable investments, and discovered ServiceNow’s global reach. 

In San Francisco, we admired payment giant Stripe’s beautiful new digs at Oyster Point and were (quite literally) at the top of the city at Salesforce headquarters. The last day of visits brought us to the two giants of ride-hailing: Uber and Lyft. While we as consumers often see them as interchangeable services, the differences were on full display at Uber’s shiny gold-and-gunmetal headquarters and Lyft’s down-to-earth and friendly headquarters (complete with plenty of purple mustaches and a stuffed horse).

As a first-year student barely a few months into the Tuck experience, the Trek also offered a unique leadership opportunity. A volunteer for each company was tasked with acting as the main liaison, helping to coordinate schedules and panel discussions, and ensuring each visit went off without a hitch.

Perhaps the most important outcome of the Trek is, as all good things are, the people. Tuck is renowned for its close-knit community, a trait that is truly woven into the fabric. Within the group of 29 students, the shared passion for technology and the camaraderie that developed from a full week of frantically covering the West Coast deepened friendships between classmates. In addition, the Trek hosted a happy hour almost every night, where a supportive and distinguished group of alumni—from industries ranging from private equity to education—came out to reconnect with each other and meet the current students. I saw firsthand that Tuck’s close-knit community continues well after graduation.

Tim Wong T’24 is a first-year student at Tuck with experience among major tech companies, spanning ride-hailing and delivery to IT networking in both the U.S. and East Asian markets. Having lived and worked in Taiwan, San Francisco, New York City, Ulaanbaatar, Shanghai, and Udaipur—to name a few—Tim is passionate about international experiences. Outside of classes and recruiting, he enjoys playing squash and being deeply involved in Tuck admissions and the Center for Digital Strategies.

As I wrap up my first term at Tuck, I want to share tips for future Tuckies starting their Tuck journey.

Enjoy and savor every moment!

Time flies when you are having fun. You will likely be presented with more student organizations, events, and other opportunities than ever. Embrace the opportunities, but do not feel the need to say yes to everything. Take the first term to explore different ways you can spend your time and contribute to the campus culture before solidifying which handful you will commit to for the long term. Focus on your unique path at Tuck without comparing yourself to others.

Be open to asking for and receiving support.

The Tuck MBA is designed to be a highly collaborative experience. The best way to work through your coursework, recruitment journey, and overall MBA experience is by leaning on others when you have questions.

Coming from a liberal arts undergraduate education meant I needed to stay curious and not be shy about asking questions to learn the coursework. I sought out support from my study group and professors, TAs, and enjoyed group TA sessions where students could pop in and out with questions and professor lead review sessions.

Similarly, for career planning and professional development, Tuck Career Services offers incredible resources and a team of dedicated career advisors that will accompany you along your recruitment process for summer internships and post-MBA opportunities. Know that the Tuck community will offer to support you along every step you take in your MBA.

Network

Networking can happen anywhere and everywhere at Tuck, and Tuck is a great environment to meet new people and put yourself out there. On shuttle rides home, I introduced myself to second-year students for the first time, and they shared advice for recruitment and career planning.

Recently, during Tech Week, a group of students and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Simon Parmett T’94, the former CEO of MuleSoft, a major software technology company that Salesforce acquired. Simon shared invaluable insights and learnings about how to apply the toolkit we are building at Tuck to influence and lead in the business work via technology and innovation.

I am continuously struck by how generous, kind, and helpful Tuckies are, whether you are meeting them on-campus, on LinkedIn, or anywhere in between.

Be yourself

Always be proud of who you are and where you come from! Tuck has ample opportunities to discover folks in the Tuck network with similar identities and shared experiences as you. This is especially important to me as a woman and person of color, two identities generally underrepresented in business school and business. I have found community within Tuck’s Asia Business Club, LIFT (The Low-Income and First-Generation at Tuck Club), and the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management (CGSM).

Betty is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a University of Southern California alumna and holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the proud daughter of Vietnam War refugees and a first-generation college graduate. Betty worked in business development and sales at a diversity-focused HR technology startup before business school. At Tuck, Betty is involved in the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, Forté Foundation, Asia Business Club, Tech Club, Low Income / First-Generation at Tuck (LIFT), and Tuck Admissions.

LIFT cofounders Alan Rice T’23 and Jonathan Diaz T’22 share how their experiences as low-income, first-generation students inspired them to build a community for Tuckies of similar backgrounds.

Alan Rice T’23

If you’d asked me two years ago, I would have told you that going back to school to earn my MBA wasn’t in the cards—especially at an institution as prestigious as the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. I grew up in a very low-income household with a father who was severely intellectually disabled due to a car accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury and a mother who has never made much more than minimum wage. Having experienced homelessness and food insecurity throughout my childhood, I was proud to have been the first member of my family to graduate from college, work a white-collar job, and break out of poverty.

I knew that going to business school would mean risking the security which I had worked so hard to obtain; it meant quitting my job, being without an income for two years, having a two-year gap on my resume, and potentially taking out six-figures worth of student loans all with the hope (not guarantee) that it pencils out in the end.

When I learned that there are people like me who identify with the same low-income and first-generation experience and have similar dreams to me of ending my family’s cycle of generational poverty, I began to realize that attending business school was a legitimate possibility for me. I realized that I could even help to develop a community that would empower others who identify with coming from a low-income and first-generation background.

After realizing that, I began to develop the concept of LIFT (Low-Income and First-Generation at Tuck) and was later joined by Jonathan Diaz T’22 and Andrew Key T’23 as we worked through the process of establishing LIFT as an official club at Tuck.

Since then, I have been extremely grateful for the LIFT community at Tuck. LIFT has become a safe space where people are able to share their authentic selves with their peers, and engage in critical dialogue about topics that may have been otherwise uncomfortable to discuss, like:

• How do I incorporate my parents or other family members that may be financially dependent on me into my financial plan?
• What risks am I actually taking by being here, and how do I plan accordingly?
• What sort of impact will my first-generation or low-income status have on my career?
• How does my background impact my worldview?
• What can I do, and what should I do, to give back to others like me, if anything?

I look forward to seeing LIFT continuously grow, provide meaningful support to future generations of Tuck students, and become an integral part of the Tuck fabric.

Alan is from Minnesota and earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota. Prior to Tuck, he was in sales, engineering, and product management in the water industry, and after Tuck, he will be joining McKinsey and Company as an Associate in the New York Office.

In 2021, Alan founded Low-Income and First-Generation at Tuck (LIFT) in an attempt to create community at Tuck for students from low-income or first-generation backgrounds. Outside of work and school, Alan is passionate about supporting the disenfranchised by designing and building clean water and sanitation systems in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Madagascar.

LIFT cords made their debut at Tuck Investiture 2022. Students could opt to wear the green, gold, and white cords to represent the low-income, first-generation community at Tuck.

Jonathan Diaz T’22

When I first arrived at Tuck, I was eager to get to know my classmates and take on new and exciting opportunities. However, I soon recognized that my status as both a first-generation college student and as a person coming from a low-income background meant that certain aspects of my identity and experience put me at a disadvantage and made it harder for me to relate to others. I don’t have family connections at major corporations, my parents are both working-class folks working manual labor jobs, and I also had no experience with sports like skiing, hockey, and golf, all hobbies among many of my classmates.

This lack of common experiences and my classmates’ lack of understanding of the experiences of first-generation and/or low-income college students motivated me to co-found the LIFT club. The earliest prototype of this club started during the 2020-2021 school year. A T’21 invited a group of his classmates and T’22s that self-identified as first-generation and/or low-income over to his house. We shared stories of our experiences navigating Tuck and the business world.

This experience made me realize that I longed for this type of community and that people like me at Tuck felt the way I was feeling and had experienced navigating spaces where they did not feel understood. When Alan Rice T’23 reached out to me over the summer of 2022 with the proposal for LIFT, I was thrilled. I had the chance to bring my T’21 friend’s safe space for people like us to life and become formally recognized by Tuck.

Now as a club at Tuck, we have hosted multiple events including a well-attended event (70+ participants) on personal finance for MBAs facilitated by a certified personal finance professional.

Now that I have graduated from Tuck, I am confident that our T’23 co-chairs Alan Rice, Andrew Key, and Karry Kong will support our T’24 LIFT members in their recruiting pursuits and in building a strong and supportive community that is integral to the Tuck fabric.

Jonathan is from the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City in uptown Manhattan. He grew up low-income to immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic. As a first-generation college student, Jonathan attended the University of Virginia where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in commerce with concentrations in finance and management. He then joined KPMG’s Human Capital Consulting practice as an associate where he worked for three years before attending the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

During his time at Tuck, Jonathan served as a co-chair for the Tuck Diversity Conference, co-founded Low-Income and First-Generation at Tuck (LIFT), served as a Consulting Club mentor, and was one of the drummers for the Tuck Band. Post Tuck, Jonathan works as a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group’s Philadelphia office.

Low-Income and First-Generation at Tuck (LIFT) seeks to build a community of students who identify as first-generation college students or have a low-income background, and allies thereof. We strive to provide resources to enable academic and professional success and create meaningful discussions for first-generation or low-income students to share progress and contribute back to society.

In honor of LGBTQ+ History Month, we asked members of Tuck Pride—the Tuck community’s LGBTQ+ resource and support group—to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

Mitch Jacobs T’23

Gender Pronouns: He/Him/His
Hometown: Franklin, Tennessee

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

Outside of school/work, I like to hang out with my friends at Murphy’s or Dunk’s in Hanover, play tripod hockey, travel, maybe read a book, do crossword puzzles, or go for a hike.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

Realizing I was unhappy at my old job was a large ah-ha moment for me. By every metric of success, I was doing well: getting promotions, earning a healthy paycheck, and living in coastal California. I was living many people’s dream, but, at the end of the day, I was unhappy and unsatisfied with my life. Deciding to apply to business school and leave the engineering field to improve my happiness was a pretty big step, and I’m significantly happier now. Life is too short to measure your life by other’s standards of success and you should prioritize your own happiness at the end of the day.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

Maybe more than a few know, but in high school, I was one of the best high school tuba players in Michigan and the country. After considering a music major, I ended up going to school to be a nuclear engineer.

What do you believe will be the defining issue of the next 20 years?

The defining issue of the next 20 years is going to be the energy transition. Energy is at the base of everything that humans do and how we operate. How we approach it within the next 20 years could define the rest of human existence.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

Comedy Bang Bang podcast. It’s been on since 2009 and is one of the funniest things I’ve ever listened to. Over the pandemic, I listened to all 700 episodes. Would recommend it to anyone.

Xiangyu Zhao T’23

Gender Pronouns: He/His/Him
Home Country: China

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I enjoy baking; it’s very satisfying to create a delicious dessert while experimenting with ingredients and techniques. Decorating desserts also feels like a form of art, as you can use a variety of materials and skills to add visual appeal on top of a delicious taste. It requires focus and attention but can be very relaxing as well. Every time you bake a cake, you receive a slightly different result; there will always be surprises and things to learn in this process.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

To me, diversity, equity, and inclusion means the ability to recognize and appreciate the differences among us, the capacity to preserve and nourish each of us for who we are and who we choose to be, and the environment where everyone can thrive without having to compromise part of their lives. Diversity, equity, and inclusion allows us to improve ourselves individually for the betterment of the community as a whole.

What do you believe are the components of a “good” life?

I am hoping to achieve sustainable happiness in my life. Technology brings with it a huge variety of physical entertainment but reduces our ability to maintain a happy mindset. Our brain is tailored to crave constant stimulation, which can be fulfilled by our phones, tablets, and laptops. We are associating happiness with grasping for more and more information.

I have gradually become exhausted by this endless pursuit of stimulation, this intense competition for my attention from all the apps, and this inner void that’s left after I turn off my screen. A “good” life should be able to offer sustainable happiness and fulfillment without depleting your energy. Success is somewhat closely intertwined with this as well. “Success” can be stressful and time-consuming sometimes, but, at the end of the day, it should lead to a sense of fulfillment and lasting happiness long-term.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

In honor of LGBTQ+ History Month, we asked members of Tuck Pride—the Tuck community’s LGBTQ+ resource and support group—to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Jack Vann T’24

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

One of the accomplishments I’m most proud of is earning my Eagle Scout. I don’t consider myself “outdoorsy” and becoming an Eagle Scout posed some challenges (you try managing a group of 20+ teenage boys in your first leadership experience). But the twelve points of the Scout Law, which I recited almost weekly for five years, have been internalized as values and will stay with me for a lifetime. Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

My freshman comp professor liked to start class by showing eye-catching images to stimulate discussion. One day, she projected an image of a child, arms wrapped around the scarred belly of a pregnant woman. The class launched into interpretation, debating social commentary on abortion or plastic surgery.

One of my classmates raised his hand and posited that the photo’s subject may have escaped from an abusive partner. He, himself, was out on parole after killing a policeman while driving under the influence. “No one has ever said that in all the years I’ve taught this course,” the professor remarked. This nontraditional student added immensely to the richness of our class discussion. This was my first lesson in reframing away from affirmative action and towards DEI.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

To me, DEI is all about representation. Throughout history, certain societies have made significant progress regarding the inclusion of marginalized groups—before ultimately backsliding. Other societies have achieved the same level of progress and sustained it. What’s the difference? In the latter examples, individuals from those marginalized groups reached the highest levels of influence in those societies; they were leaders in politics, academia, and commerce.

Once adequate levels of representation are achieved at the top of a social hierarchy, it’s a Sisyphean task to reverse progressive policy because the policymakers have personal buy-in. This is important because DEI is an excellent barometer for the overall health of society.

I believe it was Betty Friedan who, when questioned about specific policies employers could put in place to make the workplace good for women, articulated that you don’t need policies that are good for women. You just need good policies in the workplace and women will feel comfortable. In a similar but more contemporary example, Emma Watson has explained how gender equality is a male issue too. Policy that improves inclusion isn’t just better for marginalized groups—it’s better for everyone.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I’m currently reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The book is an anthology of clinical tales by neurologist Oliver Sacks. Superficially, it’s a series of essays describing the lives of patients afflicted by various neurological pathologies. Philosophically, the book is about people who see the world differently—some of whom don’t seem to be suffering from “disorders,” so much as they are blessed by “orders.”

Jack originally hails from Texas and spent his career before Tuck working in healthcare strategy. He is passionate about all things digital health and is most excited about the innovation programs at the Magnuson Center. Jack moved to New Hampshire with his partner, Alex, and their dog, Rommie. Since arriving in August, his favorite part of Upper Valley life has been the cider.

Jennifer Chacon Salas T’24

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

I admire my mother the most; she is the strongest, most loving, and most resilient person I know. My mother didn’t let our socioeconomic background determine my aspirations and taught me how to be resourceful, honest, empathic, perseverant, and self-aware. She did everything she could to ensure my brother and I had the right to dream, and the discipline to turn our dreams into a reality. 

How would you describe your life philosophy? What do you believe are the components of a “good” life?

My life philosophy is that success is an everyday construction and is not affected by short-term outcomes. If something goes wrong, but I know I am doing my best, I reflect, adjust, and keep working. Success is a continuous effort, and it is subjective.

For me, success is multi-dimensional. It means family time, being passionate about my professional development, getting out of my comfort zone, and having a positive impact on my community.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I recently read Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis and recommend it to everyone.

Jennifer Chacon Salas T’24 grew up in Costa Rica and graduated from the University of Costa Rica. Before starting at Tuck, she worked in internal consulting and compliance at SmileDirectClub. At Tuck, she was designated as a Forte Fellow, joined the Consulting Club and Low Income & First-generation at Tuck (LIFT), and is working on a community consulting project.

Andrew Key T’23

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I find it awesome that the most physically active stage of my life has been my time at Tuck. I am running daily and finding numerous opportunities to kayak, hike, ski, skate, snowshoe, and play hockey. This has been a blessed counterweight to the fact that my time at Tuck also marks the most social stage of my life and the stage of my life with the best access to incredible ice cream and Portuguese muffins.

By the time you read this, I will have joined the “Tuck Over 30” club; there is a good chance that this will add more lower-impact activities to my routine.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

I took a two-semester leave of absence during college because I wanted additional opportunities to experiment with careers before graduating. The two experiences that I ended up pursuing interacted with each other in my mind in interesting ways; I wonder how my life would be different had I secured only one, or neither, of these roles.

My time in the White House confirmed my passion for public service–and I thought at the time that this was proof that I was destined to work in government à la Sam Seaborn from The West Wing (even though I am undoubtedly a Toby at heart). But my work at the Aspen Institute helped me understand that I was just as fulfilled working on social impact more generally, which helped me think more expansively about possible careers. This also helped bring the idea of pursuing an MBA into play for me.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

CREST is always my starting word for Wordle. It will probably remain so even after the glorious day when it is the solution to the puzzle.

How would you describe your life philosophy? 

At the risk of momentarily sounding like a not-Tuck Nice MBA, I think a core of my worldview can be described as “focus on creating value.” However, given that a very similar point was made by the decidedly Tuck Nice faculty member Professor Anant Sundaram in the closing of his must-take elective Corporate Valuation, I hope you give me a shot here. 

Economic value matters in the professional sphere–creating something that people are willing to pay money for is a decent indicator that one’s work addresses some unmet need–but in the (hopefully larger) personal sphere, there are also infinitely many equally (if not more) valid needs for friendship, love, and the like out there that also ought to be met. In the same vein of “if a tree falls in the woods…” if one’s action never contributes to helping anyone else, did that action matter? Was the underlying effort worthwhile?

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

If you did not understand my earlier West Wing reference, that show is a must. And if you can only watch one episode, S1E10 is a masterful tear-jerker. 

In terms of content I recently encountered, The Racial Equity Institute has a pamphlet called “The Groundwater Approach: Building a practical understanding of structural racism.” I think it is an excellent distillation of the arguments in favor of viewing social challenges through race- and systems-conscious lenses.

Andrew Key is from the Washington DC metro area (Maryland side!) and is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He worked in social impact and consulting separately before pursuing his MBA. Thanks to Tuck, Andrew was able to combine these interest areas and intern as a social impact consultant at The Bridgespan Group. He serves in leadership roles for multiple DEI-focused initiatives at Tuck including the Tuck Diversity Conference, Low Income & First-generation at Tuck, and Consortium. He is also a Business, Government & Society Fellow and a Non-profit Board Fellow.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

José Alvarez, Clinical Professor of Business Administration

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

My wife and I live in rural Vermont. We love to do trail work, gardening, and beekeeping on our land when we aren’t bicycling or hiking. We also love the southwestern U.S. and enjoy actively exploring desert landscapes.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

Thich Nhat Hahn. He died recently but he is a beacon of hope and peace for the many people he has touched. His book Peace is Every Step is a must-read.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

My wife and I spent over four months hitchhiking through Europe in 1987. We traveled close to 10,000 miles. We had very little money so those miles were all by thumb and we mostly slept in our two-person backpacking tent.

José Alvarez, of East Corinth, Vermont, is a clinical professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He is also a visiting senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, where he has served on the faculty since 2009. He conducts research and teaches courses in food systems, board governance, and retailing. 

Prior to his academic career, Jose spent nearly 20 years in the supermarket industry, culminating in his tenure as president and chief executive officer of Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover. José currently serves on the board of directors for United Rentals, where he is the chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee; the TJX Companies; and Munoz Group. He is also a Charter Trustee at Princeton University, the chair of the board of the Joyce Foundation, lead director of Empower Schools, a director of the Good Jobs Institute, and a director of Daily Table.

He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton.

Valeria Aloe T’04

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

Back in 2016, after more than two decades in a corporate career, I burned out. I had worked too hard to be a full-time professional and a full-time mother, following messages I received from my culture that motherhood could not be delegated. With no extended family in the U.S., with two young kids fifteen months apart in age, and with work responsibilities that extended throughout the U.S. and Mexico, I collapsed from physical and mental exhaustion.

I took six months off work to rebalance myself and attended an event at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of NJ. This was my first time being fully immersed in the Latino community as, so far, I’d always been one of the only Latinas in the room.

I was invited to relaunch and expand entrepreneurial platforms and incubators, and in this process of working closely with the community, I observed that those patterns of behavior and thinking that led to my burnout, working too much for less money, and feeling guilty about placing my needs and goals first, were happening across the board.

This was major. What everyone thinks happens just to them, is indeed cultural, but we don’t talk about it. We do not share our struggles, nor what worked to create our successes, and this holds us back individually and collectively, particularly because a large portion of the Latino community is composed of individuals who are firsts in their families to college and to their professions, and they lack an inter-generational roadmap to success.

I started to research the topic, created workshops to help my community with mindset and skillset, published my book Uncolonized Latinas, and launched the Rising Together movement. The rest of the story is being written as we speak! The book won 12 international awards, sold more than 2,000 in nine months, and I have spoken about the topic to a total of 3,000 people since the book was published.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

I met two Popes in person. I used to sing in a choir and went on a tour through Argentina, Spain, and Italy. I am an avid snowboarder and an advanced taekwondo student.

On a more personal note, very few people know how hard it was for me to be where I am right now. I was born in a rural town in Argentina, in a hard-working, middle-class family with limited resources to pay for my education. My father started to work at eleven and could not attend high school. On the other end, I obtained two college degrees and an MBA from an Ivy League school. How did that generational jump and mobility into new spaces take place? Through hard work, focus, discipline, and sometimes, tears.

I did not have a choice but to make it work. There was not an option for me to lay back and relax, ever, that I remember. I had to work very hard to get into the spaces I got into, and to prove that I deserved to be there. I was walking through a one-way narrow tunnel and had no option but to keep going.

My success has brought my parents many blessings and has allowed me to financially support them, which is an expectation in our culture for those of us that achieve mobility into higher socio-economic spaces.

The process repeated itself a few times: when I moved to the US, and most recently when I opened my own business. If you want to succeed, there is no shortcut, you must put in the work, no matter what social media makes us believe.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

I have a different view of DEI than others, I believe. In my view, DEI fails to create strategies and solutions with a longer-term view, as there are two areas that have fallen through the cracks, given the intense focus there is right now on talent attraction and retention.

1. Providing a roadmap for those who are the firsts in their families to access new spaces, particularly in three areas: personal brand building, network building, and communication and conflict management. As an example, more than 40% of Latinos in college are the first in their family to access that space. These numbers are huge and America is not yet ready to embrace that these individuals have unique needs and are not ready to navigate the system as readily.
2. Failing to provide career mobility for those who work in customer-facing, front-end, lower-paid jobs, but that have the talent and capacity to go for more and pursue a leadership path.

There is much work to be done.

How do you define “success”?

Success is the freedom to choose what you want to do, what to work on, who to work with and to bring to the world a product or service that will change the lives of many, creating a collective impact. 

What is your vision for the future? 

In 20 years the so-called minorities will be the majority, and most of those future leaders are now struggling as young talent as they lack a roadmap for professional success, given that they are the first-gen into college and into their professions. 

The opportunity to work together across races, ages, and ethnicities starts now and cannot be minimized. We all need each other, and allyship and mentorship will be critical if we aspire to continue to be the amazing country that we are.

Valeria Aloe is a speaker, the award-winning author of Uncolonized Latinas: Transforming Our Mindsets And Rising Together, and the founder of the Rising Together Movement.

The first in her family to attend college and access professional spaces in her native Argentina and in the U.S., Valeria worked in brand management, business development, and finance at Fortune 500 companies across seven countries for more than 20 years.

She founded the Rising Together Movement to drive economic inclusion and to help close the Latino leadership and wealth gaps. Through professional and personal development programs, her work equips Latinas who are the firsts in their families into their spaces, with the necessary mindset, skillset, and community to thrive, and their allies with the tools to become more assertive leaders and mentors of diverse talent.

Miguel Ramirez, Associate Director for Business Leadership Programs

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

After seeing the destructive nature of war in Sierra Leone and learning of its many causes, I began to consider what role and responsibility business had in improving outcomes for countries like this. This led me to see the importance of exposing business leaders to resource-constrained countries so they can understand the possible role they can play both personally and professionally. 

The first place I actively did this was for a renewable energy social enterprise, which had me based both in the UK and later Kenya. It was for this business-minded organization that I was able to expose business leaders, government heads, and royalty to the positive impact of sustainably financed renewable energy system allocation in rural areas. This part of my past is one reason why Tuck’s mission (to develop wise, decisive leaders who better the world through business) resonates so strongly with me.

What’s something about you only few people know?

Three things: 

1. While it took three tries, I walked across from the French-Spanish border (St. Jean-Pied-de-Port) across Spain to the Atlantic Ocean (Finisterre) on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. 
2. I also discussed the importance of renewable energy support in eastern Africa one-on-one with the Queen of England. 
3. I’m a huge Liverpool FC football/soccer supporter.

What do you believe will be the defining issue(s) of the next 20 years?

The defining issues of the next 20 years will be our response to climate change and how we adapt to its impact, and how we create a more equitable world for women globally.

Miguel joined Tuck in 2014 and works as the Associate Director for Business Leadership Programs in the Tuck Executive Education office, overseeing open enrollment and custom programming. Previously, he worked at the TuckGO office for seven years, starting as a Program Manager, then as an Associate Director for Logistics and Operations, and later as Associate Director for Business Development. Beyond his expertise in client development and consulting project management, he has experience in project management design and implementation, and global safety and security. He also regularly assists Tuck’s DEI office.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Jeffrey Williams Navarro T’23

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

DEI means giving people of all walks of life, backgrounds, and resources a shot, especially if economic and discriminatory reasons prevented that from happening historically. I see it happening in three parts: first, making them aware of the opportunities that exist—because you can’t aim at an unknown—second, equipping them with resources so they can succeed, and third, giving them that chance to step up and show what they’re made of. Unless you do all three, DEI is just lip service.

What do you believe will be the defining issue(s) of the next 20 years?

Climate change and how society and businesses adapt to it is top of mind as a defining issue in the next couple of decades. Right now, some companies are in denial mode; they’re thinking purely short term to maintain the immediate business strategy and meet earnings expectations. So far, naming and shaming hasn’t been enough, all the while we approach a point where everyone, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, will be irrevocably harmed. 

We need to implement measures for firms to internalize the cost that has previously been passed onto society as negative byproducts of economic activity so they can’t be ignored. I’m looking closely at carbon pricing and costing methods to see if a standard emerges to help track and sharply decrease carbon output.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader is in service of others and empowers them to succeed, all while conveying a vision of a better path for all to follow. This means that a leader builds reciprocal relationships, does not take credit for others’ success, and spends more time ensuring those around understand the short- and long-term objectives and their value for the organization. Leaders should be impressive, but they shouldn’t be intimidating.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Jeffrey worked at YouTube for three years prior to Tuck, managing music partnerships and content deals in Latin America. Before that, he worked in the legal team at Google for four years structuring content exclusivity partnerships deals in the gaming and music verticals. 

Jeffrey holds a B.A. in Political Communication from George Washington University. At Tuck, Jeffrey is a Tuck Admissions Associate, Tuck liaison for the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Management, director of the Tuck Social Venture Fund, and a fellow at both the Center for Digital Strategies and the Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital.

Christopher Estrella T’24

What’s something about you that only a few people know?

I spent most of my life being deathly afraid of public speaking. Nothing beats this fear like 10 years of being an educator.

Describe a challenge you encountered in your life and/or career, how you were able to overcome it, and what you learned.

I spent years not knowing what I wanted professionally and feeling inadequate because of it. Looking back, I could have spent less time worrying about what I hadn’t achieved and wondering more about what I wanted to experience.

How do you define “success”?

I define success as being able to live a life of choice and creating spaces where others can do the same.

What do you believe will be the defining issue(s) of the next 20 years?

I believe that the defining issues of the next 20 years will be how climate, tech, and DEI affect the business world. All research and objective data show what our path should be, however, the rate of change is lacking. Those who are able to adapt in the present will be the most successful in the future.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

My greatest professional realization has been taking the time to understand my locus of control and not worrying about what’s outside of it.

A New Yorker who relocated to Cambridge, and currently resides in Hanover, my passion for leadership development and intensely curious disposition brought me to Tuck. For the past 10 years, I have been working in and around K-8 education. Whether in the classroom or supporting it, I have been so privileged to learn from great colleagues and leaders.

Adrian Rodriguez T’23

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

My family and I moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic when I was 12, forever changing the trajectory of my life. As the son of a single mother of three, I took it upon myself to use education as a gateway to a better life. 

While in high school, I relied on a college-prep program, La Vida Scholars, to help me understand the complicated process of attending college. This program allowed me to be the first person in my family to pursue a higher education degree. 

Ever since I’ve been blessed with many personal and professional opportunities that have defined the course of my life up to this point and have created the value system I will carry with me post-Tuck.

How do you define “success”?

From an early age, I understood that in order to achieve anything in life, you have to create a support system, even if you don’t have a built-in one, and be as curious as possible to learn from others as you navigate uncharted waters. As a first-generation student, I relied heavily on mentors and sponsors who believed in me and opened doors otherwise I would have never been able to open. 

Success means paying forward that mentorship and helping those who need a hand.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I love the Freakonomics podcast. One of my favorite episodes (50 mins) is titled “What Exactly is College For?” which explores how colleges/universities operate like firms, trying to differentiate their products to win market share and prestige points. It ultimately answers what is good and really bad about this model—highly recommended!

Adrian Rodriguez is a first-generation, Dominican-American. Before business school, he spent seven years working across both large and small tech companies, such as Google and Criteo. Throughout that time, he worked in the AdTech space, specifically in partnerships helping publishers with their monetization strategies. 

Before starting his career in tech, Adrian got his bachelor’s degree in political science at Bowdoin College in Maine. Throughout his career and first year in business school, Adrian has developed a keen interest in enterprise products and is excited to continue a career in the tech industry post-Tuck. When he is not studying or working, Adrian can be found dancing salsa, learning how to ski, or binge-watching documentaries.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Valeria Brito Barbosa T’24

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I spend time outside of work taking care of myself and the people around me. I am a true believer in balance in all areas of our life. So, when I am not studying or working, I cultivate my physical health by running and doing Pilates or yoga. I cultivate my mental health by meditating, listening to podcasts, or reading something radically different from what I do at work. I cultivate my social health by spending time with friends, traveling to visit family, and dancing like there is no tomorrow.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

In the spirit of Hispanic Heritage Month, I’ll share something related to my heritage that not a lot of people know about me: I know the lyrics of almost all reggaeton songs.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

It means sympathy and empathy. To me, sympathy and empathy—in the context of diversity, equity, and inclusion—are crucial to understanding each other. There is no inclusion without acknowledging and understanding how others feel or have felt. And without that, there is no honest communication.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

Radical candor, confident humility, intentional communication, and unapologetic inclusion.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

This year I read My Life in Full by Indra Nooyi and I truly enjoyed learning about her life and her perspective as a female immigrant. I resonated with her struggles of adapting to a new culture while still embracing change to reach her professional goals. 

Additionally, the book shows tradeoffs and challenges inherent to being a woman in business. There is a quote from the book that stuck with me: “‘Listen to me,’ my mother replied. “You may be the president or whatever of PepsiCo, but when you come home, you are a wife and a mother and a daughter. Nobody can take your place. So you leave that crown in the garage.’”

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the challenges women need to embrace when deciding to pursue highly demanding professional careers and motherhood at the same time.

I am a Venezuelan ex-financial services consultant and have been living in the US (Boston, Miami, and now Hanover) for the last 12 years. I am currently working toward my MBA at Tuck with the intention of pursuing entrepreneurship.
 

Chris Alvarez T’23

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

Nothing makes me happier than being in the great outdoors. Outside of work, I can often be found hiking, trail running, or playing soccer with fellow Tuckies.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

I grew up believing that asking for help was a weakness. It wasn’t until high school, when my academic aptitude was truly strained, that I shared my difficulties with others and requested assistance. Through this, I discovered that asking others for help is a strength. I ask others for help frequently at Tuck, not only to further my understanding but also to receive the perspectives of those with experiences that differ from my own.

Describe a challenge(s) you encountered in your life and/or career, how you were able to overcome it, and what you learned.

When I was a freshman in college, I experienced a serious health challenge. My life changed in a heartbeat; the physical activities that fulfilled my desires to be outdoors, push my physical limits, and bond with teammates while achieving a common goal were no longer safe. 

For months, I struggled to find my foothold as, despite my surroundings staying constant, my new life had limited resemblance to my life prior. But due to the invisible nature of my health condition, few knew of my struggles. I realized that, just as others are unaware of the difficulties I endure daily, I am unaware of the obstacles facing others. 

While my greatest challenge is managing my health, I believe each of us has unique difficulties that affect every aspect of our lives. The most important thing we can do is provide others with respect, grace, and support; we are all in this together.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader is one who provides others with the opportunities, tools, and structure to promote growth while maintaining stability, allowing others to fulfill their personal and professional dreams and become the best version of themselves.

Prior to attending Tuck, Chris worked in consulting and advised public sector clients on strategic technology topics including finance, procurement, and supply chain. In addition to serving clients, he was heavily involved in business development and undergraduate recruiting. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University.

Nicolas Rizo Patron T’23

What’s something about you only a few people know?

I wanted to study nutrition before deciding to pursue a major in economics. My goal was to open a center for high-performance athletes, targeted at unprivileged, talented athletes playing sports other than soccer. Despite my short height, I am an avid basketball player and fan, who have always wished for basketball to become more popular in Peru.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

DEI is about respect. DEI is about learning to value differences. DEI is about continuous personal growth. DEI is about open dialogue. 

Whether it is the design of a recruiting program, the redefinition of a firm’s internal culture, or a genuine conversation with a fellow classmate, DEI will be present. DEI is embedded in every aspect of our lives, giving us an opportunity to reflect and become a better version of ourselves and improve the world of business.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

Certainly, there is no unique set of characteristics. However, any good leader should not fall short of the following: listening capabilities, assertiveness, humility, and empathy. Otherwise, how would you identify others’ needs if you don’t listen? How would you solve conflicts within a team without assertiveness? How would you help others grow if you are not humble enough to acknowledge your own weaknesses? How would you understand your family, co-workers, or teams if you can’t put yourself in their shoes?

Born and raised in Peru and married to Francesca Ferrero (T’23), Nicolas is passionate about the intersection of financial and social returns. He worked in finance and investment-related roles for more than six years, including a Peruvian investment banking boutique and AFP Integra—the largest pension fund administrator in Peru. Nicolas earned a B.A. in Economics with a minor in finance from Universidad del Pacifico in Lima.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Hazem Ibrahim T’23

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

During my second-round interview for The Posse Scholarship, I was asked to bring an object that I felt represented me. I already thought there had been a mistake (surely, I hadn’t made it to the second round) and I couldn’t think of anything to bring. Though worried, I thought, “You know what, I’ll just go in and be myself. I know I don’t have much to offer, but maybe I can speak about my experiences.”

As I was waiting to be called in, I saw one candidate walk out of the room with a cello, his parents meeting him in the waiting room. Another candidate entered with an impressive bundle of books. Filled with doubt, I started thinking I was in way over my head. I felt so silly for even trying. “I’m sitting here alone, my mom waiting in the car because we can’t afford parking, and I have nothing to show,” went through my head. My credentials weren’t great, I had no extracurricular activities, and my ACT/SATs were awful.

When I eventually got called in, I handed them my high school transcript—an exposé of how painfully average my academics were—and answered some questions. When asked what my object was, I said, “I’m sorry I have nothing to show today, but after giving it some thought, I think what makes me me are my stories and experiences. I would love to share those if that’s ok.” I spoke about how I came to learn the values of community, appreciation, and resourcefulness, having grown up with very little. I left all of me, the real me, on the table. 

The Posse Foundation saw potential that I hadn’t. I moved on to the final round and eventually received the scholarship. This was my ah-ha moment. It made me realize that experiences can truly have an outsized impact. This ah-ha moment led to me graduating cum laude with a triple major in finance, accounting, and economics. I learned that authenticity and being real with yourself can expand your world of possibilities and help you see things you may have not previously.

Describe a challenge you encountered in your life and/or career, how you were able to overcome it, and what you learned.

When I started college, I found it difficult to relate to my classmates. My experience as a half-Egyptian, half-Nicaraguan from Hialeah, an immigrant city in the broader Miami area, was a distant experience from that of my predominantly white classmates at Syracuse. 

I never had much trouble making friends, and I was off to an ok start at the beginning of the year. However, I greeted a new friend with a kiss on the cheek—a custom I had grown up with—and nearly got smacked. At that moment, I realized just how far I was from home. 

While de-escalating the situation, I wondered if my friend was being ignorant or perhaps overreacting. I thought maybe this person didn’t share the same values as me. Those thoughts ceased as I noticed how thoughtful and understanding they were as I shared why I was leaning in. They were intrigued and continued asking more about my background. 

I quickly learned that these differences are an opportunity to share my story and learn about others. It helped me be more aware of how I grew up and my cultural nuances. Likewise, it has given me a better approach to understanding those of others.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion means recognizing and embracing the richness of the human experience. It means staying curious about others while maintaining a strong sense of self-awareness. By broadening our perspectives and deepening our understanding of what drives us, we can make better decisions for today and the future. 

Just as a parent or mentor recognizes and provides guidance on challenges they’ve faced, DEI is our collective recognition of our challenge. This is critical to ensure we are providing thoughtful, intentional opportunities for the next generation to continue being stewards of progress.

I am the youngest of 3 brothers and grew up in Hialeah, Florida—a city located in the broader Miami area. I am passionate about sharing my Hispanic culture and learning about others, especially through food and travel. I love cooking and hosting people for dinner. Fortunately, I also enjoy staying active by running, going to the gym, or playing sports.

Fernando Leyva MHCDS’23

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Professionally I am most proud of becoming a physician. Despite it being a childhood dream, I almost didn’t apply to medical school. I had been told that I wasn’t smart enough or disciplined enough for a career in medicine. But I worked and studied hard and have had an incredibly successful and fulfilling career. I think I have the best profession in the world!

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

My first job out of college was teaching science and Spanish at a high school for at-risk youth. My students struggled with life circumstances I couldn’t imagine and yet they managed to come to school almost every day and find reasons to smile, laugh, and try new things. 

I often say that they taught me so much more than I could have taught them. And, as much as I enjoyed education, my students helped me realize that I could do more for them and their communities by pursuing my own dreams of becoming a primary care physician.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

My parents are my heroes. Both are Cuban immigrants who came to the United States in the late 1950s to escape Castro’s regime. As with many immigrant stories, neither spoke English when they arrived, were separated from family, and had no money. Through amazing determination and hard work, they both built prosperous careers in service and provided my sister and me with love and support. My father used to frequently tell us, “The United States is the land of opportunity, but opportunity is disguised as hard work.” I am so proud of them and so grateful for their sacrifices and the values they instilled in me.

Describe a challenge you encountered in your life and/or career, how you were able to overcome it, and what you learned.

During medical school orientation, I found myself in an elevator with another student who angrily suggested that the only reason I’d been accepted was because I was a “Hispanic minority.” I admit his words shook me and caused me some insecurity in my first year. 

I’d heard similar comments before and have heard them since. I no longer let them affect me, but I find it sad and frustrating that some find it necessary to minimize the accomplishments of others in this way.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

Leadership qualities that I most value include humility, empathy, connectedness, communication, transparency, self-awareness, courage, and adaptability. I believe that successful leaders must be able to assess people, teams, and situations (sense the culture) and adapt their leadership styles accordingly. Effective leaders value people. They listen, communicate, collaborate, coach, and pay attention to details.

Dr. Leyva is the son of Cuban immigrants who fled communist Cuba in the 1950s. He holds a B.S. from Davidson College, an M.S. from UNC Wilmington, and an M.D. from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Leyva joined the Navy in 1997 where he has spent 25 years as a physician and healthcare leader in both traditional healthcare settings and while deployed across the globe in support of Navy operations. He currently serves as Chief Medical Officer for 1st Marine Logistics Group in California where he lives with his wife and 4 children.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Fresia Blanco T’24

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

I admire my mother, Rufina, more than anyone else in the world. As a Salvadoran immigrant and single mother who was not able to attend college, she ensured education was a top priority for me and my sister. 

While juggling up to three jobs at a time, she stayed on top of our academics, taught us the value of volunteering, and reminded us constantly that we could do anything we set our minds to. 

She is my source of inspiration. Whenever I feel down or imposter syndrome hits, I think of how far my mother has come and the many obstacles that she has tackled with grace.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader is someone who leads with empathy and integrity. They are also eager to invest and empower those around them.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I am currently reading More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth. It’s a fun yet empowering read that lets you in on the author’s rise to success and some of the challenges that she faces as a woman of color. My copy of the book is filled with endless sticky notes and highlighter markers. My favorite quote so far is “When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear.”

I was born in El Salvador but was raised in Silver Spring, MD. I graduated from Towson University in 2018 with a Bachelor’s in business administration. Prior to business school, I worked in financial services at Morgan Stanley and Common Securitization Solutions. I am a proud first-generation college graduate and love all things social impact. Outside of work, I love cooking and finding new recipes to try out!

Andres Sada Zambrano T’23

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

Outside of school, I enjoy spending time with my wife and baby, exploring the Northeast, and hanging out with our friends in Sachem. In the summer, we love hiking and swimming in the Connecticut River, and in the winter, skiing and playing tripod hockey.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion means bringing different perspectives and experiences together. We are all shaped by our unique upbringing and can offer different perspectives. DEI is crucial to bridging knowledge gaps and broadening a group’s capabilities by bringing the best ideas forward.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader can translate a vision into a reality—they must be self-aware of their skills and the situation surrounding them and have the humility to recognize what they don’t know or when they need help. Good leaders are consistently good at relationships; they know how to motivate and develop people, support and empower them, and ultimately achieve good results.

I grew up in Monterrey, Mexico as the fifth of seven siblings. I studied mechanical engineering at UT-Austin and worked summer internships in Germany and India. Upon graduation, I worked as an engineer at Cummins in Indiana. I later returned to Mexico to work as a consultant in BCG and then pursued a leadership position in a startup called Kinedu. While working in consulting, I met my wonderful wife, Maggie—she was the client! We live in Sachem with our daughter Eva (born at DHMC), and our labradoodle Felix. We love the outdoors, traveling, and spending time with our community!

Calvin Garay T’23

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?

I’m most proud that I have seized my opportunities and run with them. My family has sacrificed a lot to set me up for a successful and happy life; I’m immensely grateful. I’ve taken these opportunities they’ve provided and hope I’ve made them proud.

How would you describe your life philosophy? What do you believe are the components of a “good” life? How do you define “success”?

“Success” in life means being happy and having a positive impact on others. My life philosophy is “be here now.” I do activities like hiking/camping and playing guitar to help myself “be here now” as much as possible. When I’m in the moment, I’m happiest and can enjoy my relationships.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader is someone who makes good decisions despite potentially overwhelming complications or ambiguity. A good leader acts selflessly and prioritizes the “good of the group.” Lastly, a good leader is someone who inspires.

Calvin is from Baltimore, MD, and is a proud Chilean American. He went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN where he studied economics, Spanish, and finance and thoroughly enjoyed the Nashville live music scene. After living in NYC and Colorado, he’s now loving his life at Tuck and plans to eventually join the tech industry as a PM. Calvin is passionate about music, soccer, nature, and dogs, and he’s very excited to have a fantastic second year with his Tuck classmates!

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Members of the Tuck community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Hilde Tineo T’24

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

Oh, this one is easy! 100% spending time outdoors and catching up with friends and family. If it involves lacing up my sneakers, I’m usually there—I love going on runs, bike rides, and hikes, and if I can go with friends, even better!

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

A couple of summers ago, I was talking with one of my mentors about what I was envisioning for the future. She stopped me mid-sentence and said: “When I hear you talk, you share everything from the standpoint of what you think you should do versus what you really want to do.”

Oooof… still shakes me to this day. 

Ever since, this sentence has served as my daily reminder to be very intentional about my goals, interactions, and time. It really pushes me every day to focus on the things that will make me happy versus the things that just check the box.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

• Every year, I get to test 2-3 running shoes for Nike
• When I eat cereal, I always pour the milk first, and then I incrementally add the cereal as I go (unpopular approach, I know)

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I really enjoy listening to podcasts, but there’s one that is in my queue every morning—it’s called The Best One Yet (TBOY). Every episode is about 20 minutes long and you walk away with three quick business stories every time. The hosts do a really good job of curating relevant stories and infusing humor throughout. Highly, highly recommend!

I am originally from Caracas, Venezuela, but my family and I relocated to Racine, Wisconsin when I was 14 years old because of my mom’s job. In 2016, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering. Ever since, I have had the opportunity to work for two amazing organizations: first with Target in Minneapolis and most recently with DaVita in Denver. Outside of work, I enjoy spending time outside going on runs, bike rides, or hikes. I also love dogs, everything T-Swift, and a good breakfast sandwich or ramen bowl.

Luis Gonzalo Zegarra T’23

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

My family is my constant source of inspiration and admiration. Since I was a kid my parents set the priorities for the family, postponing or even sacrificing comforts so that my siblings and I could grow as professionals. 

Every time my parents set a goal, they achieved it, no matter how hard the road was. That was the inspiration that pushed me to pursue business school abroad.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader is able to adapt any strategy while ensuring the well-being of the team and having a clear sense of direction. In my opinion, leadership not only involves getting things done but also nurturing and teaching all team members.

I was born and raised in Lima, Peru, and am currently a second-year student at Tuck. Prior to business school, I worked for more than six years in private equity back home, focusing on real estate investments. At Tuck, I’m involved with LAIBC, SafeRides, and TWC. I’m also a consulting mentor for first-year students and a LATAM ambassador. I pivoted to consulting during the summer, doing my internship at McKinsey.

Edwin Aguilar T’23

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?

Getting accepted to Tuck at Dartmouth is one of my proudest accomplishments. I always dreamed of one day going to school at a prestigious institution without the pressure of working multiple night jobs to support my family. At times the path seemed very murky, as I was coming from a community college, a California state university, and a career path often underrepresented at top MBA programs. 

Every morning that I wake up in the Upper Valley, I pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming and take a minute to reflect on the journey to get here and on how thankful I am to all those who helped me get here.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

Despite having only taken a few finance and accounting courses, I learned the importance of financial literacy early in my educational career. During my junior year of undergrad, I bought my family’s home after dishonest real estate agents defrauded my parents, making them victims of the subprime mortgage crisis. 

Working multiple bartending jobs as an undergrad, I managed to save enough money and build a strong network that helped me navigate this crisis and buy our home back for my family. Armed with just a few business classes, I had the confidence to stand up to my parents’ debtors, changing the course of my and my family’s life forever. 

From that day forward, I promised to push myself to be a lifelong learner.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

There aren’t enough words to describe how critical I think DEI is for all organizations. To me, DEI means a seat at the table and an equal opportunity for all. It is critical to allow varying perspectives to be heard and to continue pushing DEI initiatives until it is the status quo.

Edwin Aguilar is a first-generation Guatemalan American from Los Angeles, California. Edwin moved to Hanover with his partner Shacia and their Huskies Floofee and Niño. Before joining the Tuck School of Business, Edwin worked at EY Los Angeles in their Assurance Practice and Global Innovation group. Prior to joining EY, Edwin attended Santa Monica Community College and graduated from California State University, Long Beach where he majored in business with an emphasis in accounting. In his spare time, Edwin loves to read the latest crypto/blockchain news, play golf, play soccer, and jam out on his trumpet!

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Service members learn to adapt to new environments through deployments and duty station moves. Though each situation is distinct, they’re all within the greater military framework and include built-in support. Now, as you stare down the possibility of leaving this familiar territory to pursue an MBA, it may seem a bit daunting. However, it does not have to be that way.

The community and support at Tuck will be familiar to those used to the camaraderie of the military. As a prospective student, Tuck alumni went out of their way to introduce me to their fellow alums. They supplied varying perspectives and advice on how to approach the application and interview; they helped me talk through my decision of where to attend. Throughout the application process, the strongest voices were the current members of the Veterans Club and several veteran alumni. They were adamant that their time at Tuck helped them successfully transition careers between the military and civilian world. When asked “How so?” each responded the same way: the community.

I think one of the best indicators of alumni love for Tuck is how many faculty and staff members are graduates. As they will tell you, they jumped at the opportunity to come back to Hanover. Their excitement when speaking about their experiences, their careers, and the amazing things their classmates are up to is contagious. 

The Upper Valley is unencumbered by the hustle and bustle of a big city. Tuck does an excellent job reinforcing how that intensifies the bond with your classmates during Tuck Launch. To best support the transition from uniform back to university, Tuck offers a two-week orientation period to get your bearings, both in and out of the classroom. From guest speakers to case studies, there are several opportunities to build a dedicated support network that you can rely on from the start. Not to mention, it is also a great time to grab some beers at Dunks or Murphy’s while building that class camaraderie early.

With three weeks of class already in the rearview and recruiting kicking off this week, I can assure you that things move quickly. The professors and faculty understand that. Professors hold review sessions weekly and are willing to work with you if you feel out of your depth. The MBA Program Office (MBAPO) is always standing by to ensure that you get everything out of your experience here. 

The veteran experience can be understated or taken for granted while talking to other veterans interested in pursuing an MBA. After being surrounded by it for years, we are desensitized to the distinct nature of our jobs and the experiences that shape a different approach to leadership and difficult conversations. I can assure you your classmates, faculty, and staff are not. They want to hear our stories and the journeys that brought us to Tuck. The perspective we bring is both unique and meaningful—do not discount that. 

After a month of living in Hanover, I can confidently say that I love being a member of the Tuck community. Two years in Hanover will pass in the blink of an eye, but I am happy to know that I am forever linked to this incredible place.

Military Visit Days: September 25-26, 2022

This in-person event is programmed to help active-duty servicemen and servicewomen who are interested in applying to an MBA program and to better understand the process, the perks, and our unique community at Tuck.

Learn More & Register

Reilly grew up in Richmond, VA, and graduated from the United State Naval Academy in 2017 with a B.S. in History.  Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a Surface Warfare Officer. Reilly served in the Engineering Department as the Auxiliaries Officer onboard the guided-missile destroyer USS SPRUANCE (DDG 111) out of San Diego, CA, and deployed to the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf. For his second sea tour, Reilly served as the Training Officer onboard the dock landing ship USS TORTUGA (LSD 46) out of Norfolk, VA. During his free time, Reilly enjoys live music, cooking, golf, and skiing.
 

Where have they gone? Where are those real conversations about who we are as people, how we became the person we became, the journeys we’re on, the kind of career we’re crafting? Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management at Tuck, found himself asking these questions before launching The Sydcast in 2019. The podcast, which features intimate and informative conversations with an array of guests, was inspired by this desire for deeper storytelling and human connection.

In each episode, Professor Finkelstein sits down with entrepreneurs, community leaders, professional athletes, politicians, academics, authors, musicians, and more—including many members of the Tuck community. Listen to some recent conversations with Tuck alumni guests, as they discuss everything from online learning to lessons from being an Uber driver.

The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management (CGSM) is an organization that I admittedly stumbled across through a wayward Google search of MBA scholarship opportunities. My quixotic search terms and errant click-happy ways were a preferred method of claiming that I was making progress on my MBA candidacy while sparing myself the huffing-and-puffing of drilling math problems that all seemed out to get me. 

Scrolling down the Consortium’s page was an exercise in increasingly cautious excitement. They claimed to offer a lower-cost common application—one that leveraged common letters of recommendation—a robust job fair with numerous employers that I admired, and the potential for a full-tuition fellowship. Everything I had ever heard about things that are too good to be true was practically being shouted into my mind’s ear by the time I got to the bottom of the screen. Some additional research (more targeted this time) validated that the Consortium’s claims were no exaggeration—there was no catch. Feeling beyond content with the good fortune of this discovery, it never occurred to me that there could still be more in store.

As I got to know schools better, the Tuck CGSM community quickly stood out in so many ways. Cold email outreaches were promptly responded to with videoconference invitations, and off-hand comments immediately triggered a realization of which other Tuckies I should meet. Even my wife got caught up in this web when a T’21 CGSM contact immediately got us in touch with the one T’22 whose wife was also a lawyer, even though this was just a few weeks after the T’22s had come to campus. This conversation helped my wife get a sense of the local legal job market and we as a family became fully comfortable with moving forward with the application to Tuck.    

A lot of this can be ascribed to the non-mythical Tuck Nice, but it was still evident that there was a veritable Consortium community within the broader, already tight-knit Tuck community. These were folks who made the most of the fact that they were tightly connected to ~10% of their class more than 2 months before Tuck Launch. And thinking particularly about the T’20s, T’21s, and T’22s that I was looking up to as an applicant to Tuck, it was evident how they made space together, processed together, and acted together with a particular added strength in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. 

Going beyond the notion of ‘community within a community,’ it also became clear to see how core Tuck CGSM was to the broader Tuck community. Student government leaders, school spirit champions, and class curve-setters all came from CGSM; you knew without a doubt that they would embody the Consortium’s mission and diversify the ranks of American senior leadership.
Fast forward nearly two years. The T’20s and T’21s from CGSM who had shepherded me from “Tuck might be an interesting option to throw into the mix” to “Tuck better not break my heart” had graduated, and the T’22s who had taken us under their wings through the initially touch-and-go world of a pandemic MBA had started to use terms like “in a few weeks” to describe the timelines for packing up their apartments. Building on our game/trivia nights, Wednesday evenings at Dunk’s, and all of the random coffee chats in between, we knew that our CGSM T’22s had to go out big. 

In true Tuck fashion, we chose to love the outdoors and booked a private sunset cruise on the Upper Valley’s nearby Lake Sunapee—just minutes from Mount Sunapee, where we’d held our winter ski weekend only a handful of months prior. And in truer Tuck fashion, the co-creation ethos of the school very much applied here: bring forward an idea and a willingness to execute it, and Tuck will support you in making that happen. Assistant Dean for DEI Dia Draper and Lauren Morse from the MBA Program Office immediately got behind this community-affirming activity.
And perhaps in the truest embodiment of Tuck/Tuck CGSM fashion, Dia met our last-minute amendment for a pre-cruise pizza party with a teasing eye roll, a smile, and wishes of “feed the people; have fun.”

Andrew Key T’23 is from the Washington DC metro area (Maryland side!) and is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He worked in social impact and consulting separately before Tuck, and thanks to his Tuck experience, secured an internship as a social impact consultant. Andrew serves in leadership roles for multiple DEI-focused initiatives at Tuck including the Diversity Conference, Low Income/First Generation at Tuck (LIFT), and Consortium.

Each year, the Center for Health Care accepts applications for our MBA Fellows program and selects students with a passion for health care, an interest in broadening their industry knowledge, and a desire to build the health care community at Tuck. Fellows meet monthly to discuss topical healthcare news and areas of interest with their peers, Tuck faculty and industry leaders

We are excited to announce our incoming cohort of twenty-nine exceptional students. Together, they bring a wide range of expertise, from clinical experience and drug development to health care strategy, international health systems, biotech and health policy.

Please join us in welcoming them to the program!

Katie Aldrich T’23

Katie Aldrich brings experience in biotech operations and healthcare data management and looks forward to Fellow’s discussions on how to improve health care equity, provide better medications, and reduce the overall cost of healthcare. This summer she will intern with McKinsey&Company in their Pharma Operations practice.

Chris Alvarez T’23

While in undergrad, Chris Alvarez configured computational models of epilepsy with researchers at Beth-Israel Lahey Health and promoted social media and inbound marketing at KNODE, a scientific and medical collaboration company. This summer he will intern at Danaher, specifically in marketing at Danaher’s operating company Cytiva.

Kathryn Burke T'23

Kathryn Burke joined Tuck from Gartland and Mellina Group where she worked as an Associate Management Consultant, and eMondy Advisor, where she worked as a Supervisor in Strategy and Planning. She is spending the summer as an MBA intern at CVS Health.

Nathan Busam T’23

Nathan Busam plans to use his MD/MBA to be an excellent clinician who has a voice in enhancing the way care is delivered to the many communities he will serve. Before med school, he worked as an associate consultant at Triage Consulting Group where he modeled payer reimbursement contracts to improve health system revenue cycle management.

Penny Chen T’23

Penny Chen hopes to draw from her background in operations and supply chain management to solve the problem of healthcare accessibility and distribution. She completed an operations management trainee program in Abbott Laboratories, and will intern at Kearney Consulting as a Strategic Operations Consultant this summer.

Caroline Cary T’23

Caroline Cary strives to build the health care community at Tuck for both first and second year students. She spent most of her career before Tuck in the patient education space as DaVita. This summer she will intern at Pfizer as part of their Marketing Internship Program.

Hayden Doughtry T’23

Hayden Doughtry is one of four MD/MBA students to join the Fellows program this year. He marries his business skills with a hard science background from working in a cancer laboratory at BYU Simmons Center for Cancer Research and his years as a medical researcher at Geisel School of Medicine.

Bryan Dextradeur T’23

Bryan Dextradeur spent four years at Deloitte where he focused exclusively on health care clients, including health plans, integrated delivery systems, public health agencies, digital health firms, and medical device companies. This summer he will intern at DaVita.

Martha Gilchrist T’23

Before Tuck, Martha Gilchrist worked at a life sciences strategy consulting firm where she recommended commercialization strategies to life sciences firms – spanning VC startups to global pharma firms. She will intern at Foundation Medicine in Boston on the Corporate Strategy & Portfolio Planning team this summer.

Anurag Gupta T’23

Anurag Gupta Prior to Tuck, Anurag Gupta worked in healthcare investment banking at JP Morgan where he worked on various large M&A transactions and equity/debt capital raising deals. His interests lie primarily at the intersection of healthcare and health equity. This summer he is an intern at BCG.

Yue Huang T’23

Yue Huang has a background in finance and accounting and is interested in how various ways of financing health care gives different incentives to patients, providers, pharmaceutical companies. She is interning at UBS investment bank in their Health care group this summer.

Jackie Kalan T’23

Jackie Kalan brings health technology interest and experience to the cohort from her years working at the electronic health record software company Epic. She hopes to one day return to the product side of the healthcare industry. This summer she will intern with the Corporate Strategy group at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Nathan Kung T’23

Nathan Kung strives to be a leader in mental healthcare delivery and clinical care as an MD/MBA. He was a finalist at the Haas Mental Healthcare Case Competition, serves as an Advisor for Mandala and is a Flare Health Scholar.

Cheng Li T’23

Cheng Li brings deep industry and international experience to the cohort, such as how China uses IoT technology to monitor the process of bloodstock and uses ultra-low temperature refrigeration technology to protect human gene banks. This summer he will join Goldman Sachs Asia as an IBD summer intern.

Megan Lynch T’23

Megan Lynch has consciously gained experience across many different sectors of health care (pharma, public health, hospitals, bench and clinical research, health policy) over the course of her pre-Tuck career. This summer she will intern at BCG in Boston as a generalist summer consultant.

Alexandria Mar T’23

Alexandria Mar joined Tuck after running clinical trials at Edwards Lifesciences for five years. She is currently interested in the impact of AI on the healthcare industry and its potential for disrupting healthcare practices. This summer she will intern at Deloitte.

Emma McLaughlin T’23

Emma McLaughlin’s experience working in sales at GE HealthCare helped her develop a commercial-driven mindset and understand the motivations and priorities of a variety of healthcare industry stakeholders. This summer she will intern as an Implementation Associate at McKinsey&Company.

Daniel Moertl T’23

Daniel Moertl plans to draw on his experiences working across the Austrian and US health care landscapes to help his peers broaden their view beyond the US health care sector.  Before Tuck he worked at Advantage Austria in their New York office and will intern this summer at Simon Kucher & Partners in their healthcare and life sciences division.

Charlie Palfreyman T’23

Charlie Palfreyman worked on hospital M&A, policy, and pricing at Charles River Associates before joining Tuck. In addition to being a Health Care Fellow next year, he will also be a co-chair for Tuck Community Consulting. This summer he will work at Vertex Pharmaceuticals as a Data Strategy and Solutions intern.

Julia Papanastou T’23

Julia Papanastou is inspired to better the healthcare industry and the patient care journey in the US. Before Tuck she worked in healthcare consulting at Huron Consulting Group. She will work at EY Parthenon this summer.

Sabira Rakhimova T’23

Sabira Rakhimova worked with state health agencies as an actuary at two different healthcare companies in Boston prior to Tuck, which will provide unique perspectives for her peers. She will be a program manager intern at Amazon this summer.

Lena Rice T’23

Lena Rice’s background is primarily in healthcare business, but is excited to further her learning about various business models and stakeholder alignment across the healthcare ecosystem. This summer she will intern at Thirty Madison as a Business Development intern.

Abby Rohman T’23

Abby Rohman’s passion lies primarily in women’s health and wellness, specifically women’s sexual health. During her first year at Tuck, she organized programming and events with Women in Business and Tuck Community Consulting. Prior to Tuck, Abby worked as a consultant at EY-Parthenon and KxAdvisors. This summer she will intern at UPMC Enterprise.

Navendu Sharma T’23

Navendu Sharma uses his engineering background to help his peers understand how healthcare meets analytics. Before Tuck, he worked as a Consultant at ZS Associates, a healthcare and life sciences management consulting firm. This summer he will intern at Danaher in Integrated DNA Technologies.

Matt Walsh T’23

Matt Walsh worked in economic consulting at Charles River Associates where he specialized in antitrust and competition. He worked on many healthcare litigation projects and had extensive exposure to the tension between incentives within the healthcare system. This summer he will intern at DaVita Kidney Care as part of the company’s Redwoods Leadership Development Program.

Joanna Weng T’23

Joanna Weng worked in life sciences consulting before Tuck, as well as co-founded a consumer health startup focused on personalized nutrition in the US and China. This summer she will intern with CVS Health’s Kidney Care startup in a digital strategy role.

Sherry Yang T’23

Sherry Yang’s pre-Tuck career spanned specialty pharmaceuticals in-licensing and acquisitions, healthcare consulting, and internal strategy at one of the largest cannabis companies. This summer she will work in Healthcare Investment Banking at JP Morgan.

Jiayan Yan T’23

Jiayan Yan worked for three years at Pfizer Research and Development as a clinical data manager and for three years at IQVIA as a data team lead before joining Tuck. She will intern at Trinity as a Senior Consultant this summer.

Sean Zhao T’23

Sean Zhao looks forward to applying his clinical experience as an MD/MBA student to industry discussions with his peers. Some of his interests include biotechnology and hospital management and operations.

The Center for Health Care serves as the hub for health care at Tuck. Together with students, faculty, staff, and alumni the Center creates learning opportunities and fosters connections for members of the Tuck community interested in the business of health care.

The Center’s faculty offer health care elective courses, lead the MD/MBA and MBA/MPH joint degree programs, and sponsor independent studies related to health care. Working closely with practitioners and experts across health care, the Center offers co-curricular, experiential learning, and career exploration opportunities for students to deepen their knowledge and network in health care. Learn more about the Center for Health Care at Tuck.

In celebration of Pride Month, we asked members of Tuck Pride—the Tuck community’s LGBTQ+ resource and support group—to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

The Tuck and Dartmouth community’s Pride 2022 theme, The Colors of Pride, represents the endless spectrum of gender and sexual identities, along with the many other backgrounds, that our community represents.

Charley Yu T’23

Gender Pronouns: She/Her/They/Them
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

What does Pride mean to you?

Pride means being able to live freely as myself in my most authentic form, without worrying about what others may think. It also means acknowledging how far the community has come for me to have this privilege and for me to continue to support others in being able to celebrate all of themselves.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I started a nonprofit and a candy brand the summer before business school. Keeping those progressing, and some new entrepreneurial interests, means I’m usually on my computer or a call. Outside of all of that, I love spending time with my friends and family, immersing myself in the Tuck Fabric, and sprinkling in some time for art.

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

My mom for sure. She came to the U.S. without knowing the language or having educational equivalents, leaving behind a lucrative career to work in the restaurant industry until she retired.

There were so many cultural, financial, and personal obstacles that she had to face by herself. She had to quickly become independent and humble – swallowing all her pride to make her new life make sense.

Seeing her courage and work ethic, and also the endless love for her kids, inspires me every day to do my most and my best, but to also have patience and care for others. I have the life I have because of the life my mom gave up.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

A good leader is someone who both listens to the people and translates what he/she/they hear into a unified passion, voice, and conviction.

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Erik Alatalo T’23

Gender Pronouns: He/Him
Hometown: Wilmington, MA

What does Pride mean to you?

To me, Pride is a reminder of the years of struggle that the LGBTQ+ community has faced in the fight for equality, those that we have unjustly lost, and the continued work we still need to do. Pride is also a celebration of difference, which includes both embracing what makes you different and accepting those that are different from yourself.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I love staying active. I’m very into running (I ran in college and have since run four consecutive Boston Marathons), but since coming to Tuck I’ve gotten a lot more into tripod hockey, hiking, and skiing as well.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Breaking 2:30 in the marathon.

What do you believe will be the defining issue(s) of the next 20 years?

I believe the defining issue of the next 20 years will be the evolution of First Amendment freedoms—how our political systems and technology companies respond to the continued spread of false information via personalized algorithms as well as the future of Citizens United and campaign finance. Without changes here, I find it difficult to see our country ever becoming less politically polarized.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

To me, a good leader is able to earn the respect of a team, collect a diverse array of perspectives, and articulate and execute a vision that serves to motivate others and push an organization to the next level.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I’ve recently been watching Barry. You wouldn’t think a violent show about a hitman-turned-actor would be successful as a comedy, but Bill Hader manages to pull it off quite well.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

In celebration of Pride Month, we asked members of Tuck Pride—the Tuck community’s LGBTQ+ resource and support group—to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

The Tuck and Dartmouth community’s Pride 2022 theme, The Colors of Pride, represents the endless spectrum of gender and sexual identities, along with the many other backgrounds, that our community represents.

Sam Haws T’23

Gender Pronouns: He/Him/His
Hometown: Redlands, California

What does Pride mean to you?

Pride is the celebration of everyone’s right to show up as their full authentic self—at home, at work, at school, in public, and everywhere in between! Pride gives LGBTQ+ the space to feel visible and celebrated for every part of who they are and can also act as a source of inspiration to those who might not be out yet.

In reality, we still have a long way to go in making society at large fully accepting of LGBTQ+ people, and to me, Pride is a month dedicated to celebrating how far we’ve come, but also recognizing the part we all must play in how much further there is to go.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

Outside of work/school, I enjoy getting outside as much as possible to go snow skiing, road cycling, mountain biking, hiking, or ATV riding. But I must admit I can also be found inside plenty, enjoying board games with friends or watching the most basic reality TV imaginable (shout-out to RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Bachelor franchise). However, my favorite hobby would likely have to be that of being an uncle—I have three nephews and two nieces that keep me young and act as some of my biggest inspirations.

What do you believe are the components of a “good” life?

I think a “good” life is best defined by the degree to which we leave behind a better world than we found. Whether that means giving service to your community, volunteering as a counselor, donating to charitable organizations, or getting involved in political advocacy for issues/communities you care about, the best success we can have is positively impacting the world in a way that will make the generations that follow us safer, more included, and more prosperous.

What is your vision for the future? What do you believe will be a defining issue of the next 20 years?

My vision for the future is one where LGBTQ+ people are born into a world where they can be fully accepted and validated for how they identify, regardless of where and into what family they are born. I envision a world where LGBTQ+ youth are universally encouraged to be excited about what their life can become, instead of disproportionately more likely to take their own life.

I believe a defining issue of the next 20 years will be how legislative and judicial decisions in the United States either continue to increasingly protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people or instead start regressing those rights and making queer folks feel marginalized like in times of old.

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Devu Nair T’23

Gender Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Hometown: A weighted average would be somewhere over the Atlantic

What does Pride mean to you?

Living authentically, proudly, as just yourself and nothing else.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

When I was an undergrad at UW-Madison, I ran for the Student Judiciary of the student government. I was the first person of color on Student Judiciary, and eventually the first woman of color to be elected chief justice. After years of schooling as one of a handful of non-white students, my election to this position shattered barriers and altered what I perceived as accessible to me. I was using my voice as part of a platform that I did not expect to be available.

I used my position and tenure to help disadvantaged students in any way possible: rewriting Title IX practices on campus, allocating funds justly to newly formed student clubs, speaking out on actions of the police department, and introducing national politicians at Get Out the Vote events.

I learned how to claim spaces that I felt unwelcome in, and more importantly, I inspired those like me to use their voices, too.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

I’ve been playing the violin since I was seven. It was an enormous part of my life growing up—I spent at least 40 hours a week learning, practicing, performing, and teaching.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

My favorite quote about this is, “Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance; and belonging is being able to dance like no one is watching,” (Montrece McNeill Ransom). I love this sentiment, but often equity is overlooked. To me, equity is the cornerstone of DEI/DIB efforts, because if not everyone has equal access and opportunity to enter the very spaces we want to redefine, we can’t make sustainable progress.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others? 

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

So much has happened in the world since the February DEI update. First and foremost, we hope that you and yours are well, healthy, and safe. I have to admit that I am at a loss for words around the tragedy and violence in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX, yet proud of the faculty, staff and students across Tuck and Dartmouth for the vigils, community gatherings, and opportunities to grieve, share, discuss, and support one another. The war in Ukraine continues to be a sobering reminder of how fortunate most of us are. It was inspiring to watch students like T’22s Sergey Krasovski, Sarah Geller, Elena Nikvashvili, and others galvanize around their peers with ties to the Ukraine, undertake an impressive fundraising goal, and lead a project to provide first-aid supplies to the region. And if you know Tuck, you won’t be surprised that they also reached out to check on their classmates with connections to Russia to ensure they felt safe and supported. Thanks to Hannah Payson and The Center for Business Government & Society team who hosted a faculty panel: Responding to the Crisis in Ukraine which included Professors Paul Argenti, Davin Chor, Adam Kleinbaum, Brian Tomlin, and Curt Welling. The faculty spoke about what leaders can learn about crisis response, and the short- and long-term considerations that should be top of mind for leaders. 

One of the things that has tempered the heaviness of recent events was the post-spring break return to fully in-person classes and community events, with relaxed requirements regarding masking and the increased opportunities to gather and be in community. From the ever-popular small group dinners which students organize to create opportunities to get to know different members of their class in a relaxed and organic way, to celebrations of Holi, Ramadan, Eid, Easter, Passover, and Pride. We continue to be inspired by Tuck students’ capacity for empathy and action, despite the challenges and opportunities that come with the territory of a rigorous curriculum, a vibrant recruiting environment, and the other elements of a busy modern life.

In this robust issue of the DEI @ Tuck newsletter, we are sharing a snapshot of the great work, community engagement, and scholarship that contribute to the indelible “fabric of Tuck.” 

Wishing you well, 

Dia 

Dia Draper (she/her)
Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Many Voices. One Tuck. 

Upcoming Event: Tuck Association of Diverse Alumni (TADA) Inaugural Conference

We are excited to join the TADA members in New York on Friday, June 17, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. for their inaugural conference: “Leadership 3.0: Leading with Empathy & Diversity.” This engaging day of dialogue, leadership tools, and networking will focus on advancing dialogue, sharing best practices, and supporting the diversity, equity, and inclusion goals of organizations, leaders, and teams. 

One of the factors that has contributed to increased connection between TADA alumni and current students is due to the great work of the T’22 TADA Ambassadors Sruthi Buddai and Rebecca Timmons. Thank you, Sruthi and Rebecca!

Inspiring Moment of the Term

A Recap of Tuck Black Ski Weekend by T’22 Jazmine Brite

Four Days, 350+ MBAs, 17+ schools, and nine incredible events—infinite memories, and connections all in beautiful Breckenridge, CO. Tuck Black Ski Weekend made a triumphant return in February of this year and I couldn’t have been more proud.

Tuck Black Ski Weekend is a yearly Tuck tradition where the Black Students Association at Tuck (BSAT) hosts the Black student groups of all MBA programs and friends for a weekend of celebration, joy, and inter-school connection through the very Tuck tradition of outdoor winter activities, as a part of our Black Legacy Month celebrations. This year more than ever, it was incredibly important to be intentional about creating a space for Black students to celebrate fellowship and create incredible memories that will last a lifetime. The energy was vibrant and infectious as soon as we touched down. From hitting the slopes, to our Apres-Ski Party, bringing our Tuck hospitality to our peers from around the country, to the School Daze Brunch, paying homage to the Spike Lee Joint while showcasing our school pride, we filled the weekend and the resort with non-stop dancing, fun, and laughter. We also hosted a series of networking mixers, including a professional networking mixer, a LGBTQ+ Mixer and a Black Student Leaders Round Table Discussion where leaders across all schools shared experiences, best practices, and fresh ideas for us to continue to create strong communities for Black Students on our campuses and to forge forward in creating more diverse and equitable MBA programs and business ecosystems. We rounded out the weekend with the Tuck Black Ski Gala—a black tie event galvanizing our joy and serving as the pinnacle of our celebration.

Tuck Black Ski Weekend 2022 was over a year in the making, and took countless hours, energy, talent, and commitment of the incredible planning committee, Oye Odewunmi, Kercofa Francois, Jasmine Joda, Takunda Ndoro, and my fellow BSAT Co-Chairs, Andrew Hazel and Natalie Omondi, to make a bigger and better post-COVID return. Leading this charge and working with these incredible people taught me invaluable lessons in community building, leadership, and put my entrepreneurial muscles to the test. It has been one of the biggest honors and joys of my time at Tuck.

Recommended Reading

In T’04 Valeria Aloe’s Uncolonized Latinas: Transforming our Mindsets and Rising Together we discover that, to improve the world, we must first start with ourselves. In this book, we meet immigrant Latinas and daughters of immigrants who, through trials and tribulations, have uncolonized their limiting mindsets and have found their true selves.

Valeria’s book guides us to:

• Embrace our individual and collective greatness, as we honor our stories and our ancestry
• Become more aware of the limiting cultural narratives
• As a Latina, thrive in your career and life from a place of self-esteem
• As an Ally, feel confident and become more effective when mentoring diverse talent

DEI Community News

Next50 Update

A bittersweet note of admiration and gratitude to the outgoing co-chairs of the Next50 Initiative: Tabitha Bennett, Lindsay Cox, and Gissell Castellon. Leading the initiative in its second year and preparing an infrastructure to ensure sustainability and focus was no small feat. The T’22s have left the Initiative in good hands though, as we welcome T’23s Co-Chairs Devu Nair and Prathyusha Yeluri. The group hit a number of milestones this year from recruiting a full slate of 22 Fellows and Associates, to hosting their first event (see In Case You Missed It!) and wrapping the year with the inaugural Case Workshop.

Read an update on Next50 from Lindsay Cox T’22.

Dartmouth Welcomes Kenya Tyson to the Office of the Provost

Kenya Tyson, JD joined the Office of the Provost at Dartmouth as a Senior Associate Provost in March 2022. She comes to Dartmouth from a similar role at The New School in New York City.

Kenya is a Fulbright scholar, nationally recognized criminal justice practitioner and higher education executive, with expertise in the fields of student success; restorative justice and crime prevention; and race, crime, and inequality. Kenya is also the founder and Executive Director of The Black Massacre Project, an independent public research center that explores the historical race massacres perpetrated against Black communities and the role of race-based violence in the greater context of American society.

In her role at Dartmouth, Kenya serves as the principal advisor to the Provost and provides senior leadership to the Provost Division and a wide range of internal and external constituents. Playing a pivotal role to further the broad agenda within academic affairs of the College, Kenya directs strategic initiatives and leads operational plans and procedures. Kenya also oversees resource allocations and administers financial, budgetary, and human resources for the Provost Division.

Student Board Election Results

The recent T’23 election yielded Tuck’s first Black woman elected as President of the Student Board. We are also excited to share the diverse breakdown of the new board includes 43% women, 50% students of color, 29% Low-Income and/or First-Generation college students, 14% LQBTQ+ students, 29% International students and 14% Consortium Fellows. Congratulations to all elected students!

Announcing the 2022 Tuck Diversity Conference Co-Chairs

We are pleased to announce the 2022 Tuck Diversity Conference Co-Chairs. Please mark your calendars for the 2022 conference September 23-25, and help us congratulate the T’23 team as they prepare to continue the tradition of DivCo!

Your 2022 DivCo Co-Chairs are: Divya Bobra, Anurag Gupta, Andrew Key, Devu Nair, Oye Odewunmi, Daniel Yang, and Penny Wen.

Our heartfelt appreciation to Betsy Winslow and Vincent Mack and the T’22 Co-Chair Team for the successful 2021 DivCo and Virtual DivCo conferences: Amayo Bassey, Gissell Castellon, Jonathan Diaz, Xu Han, Drew Hazel, Max Wang, Kevin White, and Cindy Yan.
 

A Co-curricular Discussion Series at Tuck: The Leadership Push

The recent T’23 Student Board election yielded Tuck’s first African American female Vice President, Destinée Mentor-Richards, and resulted in a record number of Consortium students on the board. Congratulations to all elected students!

Over the course of winter and spring terms, Professor Dan Feiler led the second iteration of a small group discussion series called The Leadership Push.Professor Feiler and interested second-year students gathered monthly at Murphy’s for an engaging conversation focused on current leadership topics, hot-button leadership issues, and conventional leadership wisdom meant to be challenged or built on by the group.

The series offers an opportunity for students to spend time together and have academic discussions in a non-classroom setting. Prior to each session, Professor Feiler provides topics to contemplate before coming together to examine them as a group. He asks students to think about these topics not only in terms of ‘what is’ but also in terms of ‘what is next.’ Topics this year have included:

• Diversity: To some leaders and organizations, diversity has come to be operationalized as something akin to percent not ‘straight White male.’ We can see reasons for this, but at the same time we should ask ourselves: what goes missing from the leader’s picture as a consequence of thinking about diversity in this way? What does this operationalization mean for how leaders think about building inclusion and diversity in organizations?
• Bad Bosses: Think about the worst managers or leaders that you have worked under. What made them bad? What about how the organization functioned may have contributed to them being a bad boss? What ways might we unwittingly turn into bad bosses as a product of how we get promoted, the situations we find ourselves in, the organizational cultures we have had to adapt to, and the power we will have that could warp how we think?
• Similarity-liking: Similarity-liking is the tendency to like a person more when they share a similarity with you. How should a leader think about similarity-liking and cohesion among people who share similar aspects (broadly defined) in their organization?

Stay tuned as we hope to offer another opportunity to join the Leadership Push series with Professor Feiler during academic year 2022-23!

Faculty Lunch & Learns

This spring, the DEI team kicked off a new workshop series called Faculty Lunch & Learns. The goal of these monthly sessions is to have crisp, engaging 60-minute conversation covering a range of DEI related topics and Tuck-centric updates. After the inaugural session led by Dean Draper in February, we were thrilled to invite guest speakers to our March and April events, who spoke to the student and post MBA experience through a diverse lens. In March, Jerry Won spoke with faculty about the Asian International vs Asian American student experience, the model minority myth as it relates to business school, and about current events and their impact on students. Jerry used his personal experiences, as well as research by educators on the topic, to share best practices and to allow for open and honest dialogue on where Tuck is today and where it wants to go.

In April, T’05 and TADA co-chair Ramsey Jay, Jr. spoke with faculty about his experience as a black student at Tuck and shared a framework for thinking about diversity by using an app, in session, to poll the faculty participants in real time – illuminating the diversity even in the midst of what would appear to be a homogenous group. Ramsey’s blend of leveraging data, personal stories and engaging the faculty despite the sensitive nature of the topic was second only to having him back on campus for his reunion where he led a similar session “Diversity Through An Atypical Lens.”

Initiative on Workplace Inclusion 

I’m thrilled by the news that, leveraging the expertise, wisdom, and leadership of our own Ella Bell Smith, Tuck has launched a new initiative to harness workplace inclusion. As recently announced, the Initiative on Workplace Inclusion will convene thought leaders, practitioners, and students to identify, frame, and debate important topics around equity and inclusion in the workplace. It will support research that can be disseminated among scholars, policymakers, and organizations—in particular, research to help overcome the foundational barrier of still-incomplete knowledge on how to build and maintain workplaces with greater racial, gender, and class inclusion. 

Learn more on the new initiative’s website.

DE&I Student Co-Chair Corner

With Becky Timmons T’22 and Jasmine Joda T’23 

This winter, we were pleased to launch two new initiatives: the Return on Inclusion Fund and the How to be an Ally Challenge. The Return on Inclusion Fund was created to promote collaboration among student clubs with a focus on a cultural educational experience or creating a sense of belonging within the Tuck community. In this time, we were pleased to help fund: 

• Tuck Wine Club X BSAT Wine Night @ the Nugget, highlighting black sommeliers and learning about black wineries
• Women in Business x Tuck Pride x Men as Allies, guest comic storyteller, Cindy Pearce
• Tuck Fabric, student led program to deepen connections across classes.

The How to be an Ally Challenge launched during Black Legacy Month and included daily activities of reflection, bonding with classmates, and an interactive activity demonstrating power dynamics in society.

As the school year approaches the end, we are pleased to announce the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Chair for next year, Jahnavi! Jahnavi is from Houston, TX and attended the University of Texas - Austin majoring in Communications and Journalism.

When asked why DEI, Jahnavi shared: "As an Indian-American and woman from tech, I feel a personal connection to issues regarding DE&I. I also enjoy learning about other people and their unique experiences. I’m looking forward to incorporating diverse perspectives into Tuck’s DE&I strategy to ensure everyone feels like they matter and belong."

In Case You Missed It: History, Heritage, Honor

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPIHM)

Throughout the month of May, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities offered a number of events and programs to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

AAPIHM 2022’s theme, Constellations, explored the ways in which each member of the AAPI community creates connections with each other and with other marginalized communities. Each constellation represents the solidarities formed across time and space, symbolizing transnational and transcultural strength.

Here at Tuck, we celebrated with a karaoke night, a poetry workshop with Truong Tran, a staff lunch and learn with Jerry Won, and more. If you haven’t already, take a moment to catch up on the latest installment in our Many Voices, One Tuck project which celebrates the voices of our AAPIHM community.

PRIDE 2022

Dartmouth Pride is an annual celebration of the LGTBQIA+ community on campus. We celebrate Dartmouth Pride to center the lived experiences and history of Dartmouth LGBTQIA+ students while educating our peers about issues surrounding LGBTQIA+ rights.

Dartmouth Pride is also an opportunity to uplift and empower queer identities and recognize the inequalities within the LGBTQIA+ community itself. This year, the Tuck Pride club hosted a (sold out!) Drag Brunch Bingo event to fundraise for the Trevor Project.  On the heels of the Tuck Gives Gala and Brazilian CarnaTuck, one student described it as “the perfect end to the best weekend I’ve had at Tuck.”

June is national pride month! In celebration we’ll be sharing a special portrait and reflection series featuring members of Tuck Pride. Be on the lookout for the series on the Tuck Instagram and Tuck Pride Instagram accounts.
 

In Case You Missed It: Allyship Events

Allyship seemed to be top of mind this spring as students returned to a fully in-person experience and took the lead in planning events that aligned with their interest. Two noteworthy programs come to mind.

First, in early April, Professor Ella Bell Smith & Stella Nkomo, PhD led a conversation about gender, allyship, and inclusive leadership in the workplace. The event was hosted by The Next50 Initiative and Men As Allies groups. The conversation was moderated by T’22 Emily Blau and prompted reflection and discussion about what has changed in the workplace (or classroom) and what hasn’t changed since the original publication of their book Our Separate Ways: Black & White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity. The duo shared their thoughts on how men and women can seek out and be allies, champions, sponsors, and co-conspirators for each other as they return to the workplace. The event was followed by a classic TuckTails bringing students, faculty, staff, and partners together to continue the conversation over good food and the beloved backdrop of Stell Hall.

Second, in late April, Carl Kreitzberg and Andrew DeSimone organized a lunchtime event with Dean Slaughter titled Allyship in the Workplace. The Men As Allies Co-Chairs interviewed Dean Slaughter to better understand his thoughts on what effective allyship looks like and how to cultivate it both within and around you, especially when it isn’t always easy to do so. The end of term event was packed with first- and second-year students seeking actionable ideas for creating more inclusive environments.

A recent favorite was the View from The Top speaker series featuring Dean Slaughter and Professor VG Govindarajan in conversation with Huber Joly, retired CEO of Best Buy, and the Visiting Executive series which included accomplished senior leaders such as Captain Zeita Merchant, the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. Coast Guard. Captain Merchant visited T’10 Amy Florentino’s Management Communications class this winter to share her experiences on the front line of national security for our ports and waterways.

And in April, the Center for Entrepreneurship, Women in Business Club, Tuck Africa Club and the Tuck DEI team came together to host five-time Grammy-award-winning musician, activist, and entrepreneur Angélique Kidjo for a special fireside chat and Tuck Tails. Kidjo went on to perform at the Hop on April 29.

Tuck Community Shoutouts

We’d like to give a quick shoutout to one of the founders of TADA, Dawson Her Many Horses T’10, who was recently appointed to the board of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Dawson was our most recent Diversity Conference keynote speaker, and you can watch his talk here.

Vincent Mack, associate director of intercultural leadership, was recently interviewed about the launch of his new Intercultural Leadership Program at Tuck, and how the Tuck student community inspires him. “It’s almost effortless to be inspired by students at Tuck, especially when you hear their stories, the sacrifices they made to be here, and what it costs both financially and socially to be in this space. This is an investment they're making not just in themselves, but for their future, for their families. I feel very fortunate to be able to have this time with them and hear their stories,” says Mack.

Laura Shen T’17, chief diversity and inclusion officer at WEX Inc., was featured in a cover story for Maine Biz that focuses on how four Maine companies are approaching diversity, equity, and inclusion. “You don’t have the luxury of sitting back and seeing what others do, but the really fun part of my job is to be able to create something new,” Shen says. “There’s no real playbook for DEI, it’s about doing the right things.”

In celebration of Pride Month, we asked members of our LGBTQ+ community to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

The Tuck and Dartmouth community’s Pride 2022 theme, The Colors of Pride, represents the endless spectrum of gender and sexual identities, along with the many other backgrounds, that our community represents.

Calin Wilson T’22

Gender Pronouns: He/Him/His
Hometown: Parkland, Florida

What does Pride mean to you?

Celebrating wherever you are in your journey toward embracing your whole identity.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

Traveling—to old favorites and new destinations alike—and enjoying lots of food and wine along the way.

How would you describe your life philosophy? What do you believe are the components of a “good” life? How do you define “success”?

Embracing change and its beauty has become a source of excitement for me, rather than one of fear. My dad has always said, “You can never go back.” This instilled a belief in me that everything, as it exists in this moment, is truly for a moment.

I think a lot of “success” comes from recognizing how ephemeral life can be and avoiding longing for the past in exchange for being present in the moment—whatever that moment may be.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

Recognizing that a mission can only be realized when people, at the individual level, are empowered to do so. Listening, expressing gratitude, and giving people the freedom to be themselves are leadership tools that I believe to be extraordinarily powerful.

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Armando Felicio Filho T’22

Gender Pronouns: He/his/him
Hometown: Sao Paulo, Brazil

What does Pride mean to you?

Pride is the encouragement to bring my whole self to everything I do and act authentically without neglecting my LGBTQ+ identity. It also reminds me of the impact the community has had on my journey. When I truly embodied Pride in my identity and values, I unlocked connections that supported and inspired me to thrive and grow.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am proud of the journey that brought me to Tuck. My struggles and successes played a major role in shaping my values and continue to be the guides that inform my most important decisions. The part of my journey that makes me most proud is the urge to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone in the pursuit of a lifelong learning experience.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

Successful leadership means embracing diversity as a guiding principle to build better spaces. Even though this comes with its own challenges, the leaders who inspire me the most transform differences into opportunities; they are committed to inspiring through actions and leading by example.

How would you describe your life philosophy? What do you believe are the components of a “good” life? How do you define “success”?

The building block of my life philosophy is building self-awareness. The enormous amount of information we take in every day means we must, as individuals, maintain a clear set of values and a disciplined approach to decision-making. I have found that crafting my own definition of success is how I stay true to my beliefs and goals in an age of comparison.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

A few weeks into our first year at Tuck in 2020, some of my classmates and I noticed a pattern among the cases being taught in our classes: most of them featured white, American men as protagonists. In comparison, some of us felt we were spending relatively little time talking about female leaders—the kinds of women we could see ourselves in.

The underrepresentation of women featured in business case studies mirrored a familiar frustration—one felt by the female professional athletes who get precious little airtime or attention in the media. In my own experience as a young female athlete, I found that my favorite pro athletes were always men because men’s sports were on TV. I loved playing sports but never once entertained thoughts of becoming a professional athlete because I could never fully relate to the athletes I was watching.

Being able to see oneself in the “heroes” we see, read, and learn about matters. When students rarely see themselves reflected in the business leaders celebrated in the classroom, it negatively impacts confidence and leadership development. Not only do these business case studies help us as students explore how to approach different challenges and opportunities, but they also help us imagine ourselves as future leaders who will confront similar challenges and opportunities as we progress in our careers.

In an article about why the gender gap in cases matters, Colleen Ammerman, director of the Gender Initiative at Harvard Business School, writes, “Cases send a broader message about what leadership looks like. When the leader archetype is very narrowly defined, it not only hinders the ability of students who don’t share those characteristics to identify with the protagonist, it also reinforces stereotypes about who ‘real leaders’ are.”

The desire to feature more diversity and inclusion in business case studies led to the creation of an initiative called Next50. Started at Tuck in the fall of 2020, Next50 (now the Next50 DEI Dean’s Fellowship under Dean Dia Draper) was originally founded as a student group by eleven T’21s and T’22s eager to see a more diverse set of leadership voices showcased in the classroom. It has since expanded to a team of 27 (12 Fellows and 15 Associates).

In April, Next50 hosted a case writing workshop where students learned how to write cases from Professor Gavetti and Carl Kreitzberg T’22.
 

Students applied these learnings by researching and writing a short case proposal that could be adopted into a Tuck course.
 

Dia Draper, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, addresses workshop attendees. Under her leadership, Next 50 has expanded to a team of 12 fellows and 15 associates.
 

We recognize this is an opportunity not just for Tuck but for all business programs. Tuck has the opportunity to be a leader in identifying and teaching a set of cases that more closely reflect the changing world that my classmates and I will encounter when we graduate. Next50 has set an ambitious goal for Tuck: by 2025, 50% of cases in Tuck’s curriculum include gender, racial, and/or international diversity. This will be achieved through the selection of cases taught but, more importantly, through a collaboration among faculty, students, and staff for the creation of original cases, including through a case competition the Next50 team will host for the first time next winter.

Long term, we see the Next50 initiative expanding beyond Tuck as we partner with other MBA programs to devote more resources and expand the capacity for more diverse representation in business case studies. We already see a massive appetite for changing the narrative across students, alumni, faculty, and staff both at Tuck and other MBA programs—all of whom have reached out asking how they can support the effort. We have seen firsthand how strongly and broadly the mission of changing perception resonates.

The strength of the Next50 mission has helped us attract a strong and dedicated team of Tuck students and partners this year. The drive of our team is what will stay with me most when I graduate in June.

We started the academic year building out and recruiting for the Fellowship program with Dean Draper. Since then, the team has hit some major milestones, among them:

• Creating a faculty advisory board to collaborate and partner directly with Tuck professors
• Running a case writing workshop in April 2022 as a pilot for our first-ever case competition next winter
• Writing our very first original case study featuring SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell (in partnership with Deans Joe Hall and Brian Tomlin), which will be taught in Core Operations in 2023
• Hosting our first school-wide sponsored event, featuring Professor Ella Bell Smith and Dr. Stella Nkomo, authors of Our Separate Ways 

My fellow co-chairs Tabitha Bennett, Gissell Castellon, and I are thrilled to pass the torch to next year’s co-chairs, Devu Nair and Prathyusha Yeluri. Devu, Prathyusha, and the Next50 team will continue to grow the program and connect with the Tuck community, establish a roadmap with faculty, identify opportunities for more original case scholarship, and much more.

Throughout the month of May, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities will offer a number of events and programs to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. AAPIHM 2022’s theme, Constellations, explores the ways in which each member of the AAPI community creates connections with each other and with other marginalized communities. Each constellation represents the solidarities formed across time and space, symbolizing transnational and transcultural strength. 

In celebration of AAPIHM, we asked members of our AAPI community to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

Aadyaa Pandey T’23

How would you describe your life philosophy?

My life’s philosophy is to focus on the process rather than the outcome. As a high school student, I always found myself stressing out about exams and the results. After an exam, my father would always ask me if I did my best, to which I would always say yes. He would casually go on to say, “Do your best and if your best is not enough, so be it.” I have carried this learning throughout my life, and I focus more on giving 100% to what I do rather than worrying about the result.

Describe a challenge you encountered in your life and/or career, how you were able to overcome it, and what you learned.

The biggest challenge I have encountered in my life is coping with the loss of my mother six years ago. Initially, I chose to ignore my grief and kept myself as busy as I could. Over time, I have come to learn that emotions are a big part of being human. I have learned to acknowledge, process, and release difficult emotions instead of ignoring and invalidating them.  

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am proud of initiating, designing, and leading a project to diversify the business model of a company to bolster its revenue and create income for 200 tourism-dependent households during COVID-19.

Before Tuck, I was leading the Impact and Sustainability Department for a group of companies in the tourism and hospitality sector in Nepal. One of my responsibilities was to find ways to incorporate social impact into the business model. I identified an opportunity, designed a project, sourced appropriate funding, identified synergies between the company and the project, and developed a team to work on project implementation. The project helped the company generate revenue at a time when tourism was at a standstill and helped communities recover and exceed their average monthly tourism income.

Prior to Tuck, Aadyaa worked in consulting for PricewaterhouseCoopers before transitioning to a leadership role in the tourism and hospitality sector in her native Nepal. With a focus on sustainability and social impact, Aadyaa helped assess, measure, and improve performance. She enjoys hiking, yoga, reflective writing, reading biographies, and listening to music. At Tuck, Aadyaa is part of the Consulting Club, International Club, and Net Impact Club.

 

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Jason Dai T’23

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

I’m passionate about technology and entrepreneurship. I constantly look for ways to learn more about how innovation is changing the world we live in and explore new venture ideas from the lens of an investor. Outside of work, I am actively engaged in my communities. Having been born and raised in China but lived in the States for the past decade, I recognize the cultural challenges Asian international students often face and am active in trying to find solutions. I have led a few student organizations where we focus on mentorship and community, and I’m currently one of the co-chairs of Asia Business Club, with a goal to foster a strong sense of belonging for our Asian students, celebrate the diverse countries and cultures they represent, and facilitate collaborations with the larger Tuck community.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

To me, diversity, equity, and inclusion means always having a genuine interest in learning from our differences and presenting equal opportunities to all with no presumption. Through diversity, equity, and inclusion, we can ensure fresh insights and perspectives are incorporated, and a greater degree of collaboration always helps nurture innovation and change. We live in a fast-paced environment and are surrounded by an endless amount of information. Admittedly, sometimes people’s minds and opinions are easily swayed by what they see and hear, and the world becomes divided.

For the Asian, Asian American, and other Pan Asian communities, we are living through a very challenging time right now. During the pandemic, I’ve witnessed many counts of anti-Asian hate speech and racial attacks, and it saddens me that some have decided to take a bystander approach because, in their minds, Asian Americans have always been the “Model Minority” and their struggles don’t amount to a level that calls for allyship. But I’ve also been blessed to have the support of so many that recognize the importance of diversity and celebrate the Asian identity and heritage with me.

Recently at Tuck, the Asia Business Club and International Club co-hosted a karaoke night, where students came together to perform their favorite songs. The event had a great turnout, and most importantly, everyone was able to share and showcase their cultures. Afterward, several classmates came to me and said that it was one of the most inclusive nights they have ever spent at Tuck, and truly it was a highlight of my first year in Hanover. These are the very reasons why I believe that only by embracing DEI at the core, we can become the wise, decisive leaders that Tuck teaches us to be.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader?

To me, a good leader must learn to empathize. As Oprah has put it, “It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” In my professional career, I’ve benefitted from numerous mentors who have shown me great empathy, supporting me to achieve my goals in any way possible, and I try to reciprocate whenever I lead, too. I believe that being empathetic will help leaders identify with their people, understand their point of view, and act upon it. It also helps teams form stronger trust and establish a deeper personal relationship with each other. While I’m fortunate to be surrounded by so many talented individuals at business school, I find empathy extremely important to further motivate collaboration and build camaraderie as well.

Jason Dai is a first-year MBA student at the Tuck School of Business. He has four years of experience advising Fortune 500 companies and financial sponsors in mergers and acquisitions at EY and is interested in continuing to pursue a career in finance. At Tuck, Jason is a co-chair of Asia Business Club and the Finance Club, a director of the Tuck ESG Fund, and a regional captain for Tuck Ambassador. He is adventurous and loves exploring new things, and his most recent hobbies are golfing and snowboarding. Jason received a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Environmental Economics & Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. He grew up in Guangzhou, China, and spent the last eight years living in San Francisco.

 

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Throughout the month of May, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities will offer a number of events and programs to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. AAPIHM 2022’s theme, Constellations, explores the ways in which each member of the AAPI community creates connections with each other and with other marginalized communities. Each constellation represents the solidarities formed across time and space, symbolizing transnational and transcultural strength. 

In celebration of AAPIHM, we asked members of our AAPI community to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

Kartik Gulati T’23

What’s something about you only a few people know?

I play the guitar, maintain copious travel journals, and try and summit one high-altitude peak every year—the highest I’ve gone is 15,000ft! COVID and then a serious knee injury have thrown a spanner into that part of my life recently, but I’ll be back soon!

How would you describe your life philosophy?

My philosophy is captured in three basic ideas: be kind, be brave, and do more.

I studied physics as an undergrad and the one big thing I took away from the study of the physical world was the staggering realization of just how large, old, and unfriendly the universe is, and how precious and unlikely our existence within it is. Our ability to experience life is a precious gift from probability and the best thing we can do with it is to experience it fully and to make sure that others around us experience it fully—something that being kind, being brave, and doing more enable.  

What is your vision for the future? What do you believe will be the defining issue of the next 20 years? 

I believe that we are at a unique point in human history—we have the conscience and awareness of the second and third-order impacts of human systems, and the technology, capital, and will to do something about it. Within this macro context, I think the defining issues of our time will be our relationship with our planet (climate change, waste management, wildlife conservation) and our relationship with one another (polarization, inequality, social media).

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

Other Minds, by Peter Godfrey Smith, is a book that explores sentience and consciousness in octopuses from both a biological and a philosophical perspective. The TL;DR of the book is that the closest shared ancestors of humans and the octopus lived 600,000 years ago before life’s ascension onto land had even begun. The mammal brain and the octopus brain, therefore, evolved over thousands of years under wildly different environments. On land, humans evolved the most developed brain, but in the ocean, the octopus has the strongest claim to that title. In essence, evolution built the brain twice (one in the ocean and one on land), and therefore, studying the octopus brain is the closest we can come (so far) to studying what an alien brain may look like. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the natural world, the study of consciousness, or learning about something entirely new!

Kartik started his career with Deloitte Consulting where he helped clients in healthcare and life sciences identify M&A targets and improve top-line strategy. He then moved on to ReNew Power, India’s largest clean energy developer, where he helped his firm invest in emerging cleantech (green hydrogen, energy storage, etc.) and expand into new geographies. At Tuck, Kartik is the CFO of TuckStuff, a student-run retail business, the co-chair of the South Asian Business Association, and a PEVC fellow at the Center for Private Equity & Venture Capital. Kartik will be interning with L.E.K Consulting in Boston over the summer.

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Sherry Yang T’23

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of work?

One of the key things I learned from my experience at Tuck is JOMO and being very intentional about what I dedicate my time to. Every day at Tuck there are at least two to three conflicting events that I always want to attend. But like in the real world, time is a scarce resource, and it forces me to prioritize what I feel would add the most value. I’ve learned that it’s completely okay to slow down, be in my own little bubble and even derive ‘joy from missing out.’

Outside of school/work, you can find me involved in extracurriculars like working on the Next50 Initiative, trying to build investment memos at the Tuck Social Venture Fund and the early VC workshop, participating in case competitions, skiing, doing nature walks at Occom Pond, grabbing coffee at Nest and Lucky’s, or hiking at Gile. 

Describe a challenge you encountered in your life and/or career, how you were able to overcome it, and what you learned.

At the beginning of my professional career, I struggled a lot with the lack of control I had in curating an accelerated and fast-paced professional development journey. Straight out of undergrad, I was hungry for knowledge, learning, and experience. The most impactful feedback I’ve ever gotten from my mentor was that “I can’t cheat experience.” I needed to develop my core foundational repertoire of skills and learn to walk before I can run. At the time, I was frustrated by the inability to be in the driver's seat of my career. But as I slowly gained more experience and matured, I realized the validity of the claim and the benefits of slowing down to speed up.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

DEI to me is more than representation, it’s a moral obligation. It’s a practice that at its core is to curate an environment that celebrates differences and ensures everyone—regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or identity—is given the support to be on an even playing field. From this, we’ve naturally seen the downstream benefits of more informed decision-making due to diverse perspectives, solving niche problems that may not affect the majority, increasing productivity and general wellness, etc. when individuals can be themselves and are given the resources to excel.

In your opinion, what makes a good leader? 

In my opinion, a good leader needs to embody three characteristics. They need to be versatile, empowering, and empathetic.

1. Versatile—They need to not only have the competency to dive deep into challenges but also step back to view the bigger picture, wear different hats and adapt to the evolving needs of the market and employees.
2. Empowering—At the heart of leadership is the ability to facilitate an environment whereby others are empowered to thrive.
3. Empathetic—A leader needs to see the people behind the numbers and be emotionally and socially aware of the struggles and challenges others are going through to offer support. 
    

Prior to Tuck, Sherry worked in the healthcare industry with a focus on drug licensing, consulting, and executing market entrance strategies to reshape the perceptions of cannabis as a consumer retail product. She received her Bachelor of Health Sciences and a Master’s in Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization from McMaster University (Canada). Throughout her career journey, she has worked in male-dominated, non-diverse environments where proactively speaking out was not always met with positive reactions. Having lived through experiences like these, she wants to be involved in more DEI initiatives at Tuck to add representation and diversity to the Tuck curriculum. Outside of DEI, she is a Healthcare Fellow; TVSF Director; ASW, WIBC, and ABC co-chair; and loves making macarons, yoga, and dancing.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Throughout the month of May, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities will offer a number of events and programs to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. AAPIHM 2022’s theme, Constellations, explores the ways in which each member of the AAPI community creates connections with each other and with other marginalized communities. Each constellation represents the solidarities formed across time and space, symbolizing transnational and transcultural strength. 

In celebration of AAPIHM, we asked members of our AAPI community to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

Within a few months, I’ll transition from student to alumna. The T’20s warned me, “Your MBA will be done before you know it, so make the most of your experience!”

To be candid, adjusting to Tuck took me a while. As an introvert, I valued Tuck's tight-knit community for building relationships. But this desire to be in a small community starkly opposes my introverted tendency that loves anonymity. Before Tuck, Los Angeles was my home and social refuge: every Saturday morning, I would go to a coffee shop to hide behind my book and drink coffee. At Tuck, hiding is impossible. The entire town of Hanover is my campus, and the closest city, Boston, is 2 hours away. However, I realized my struggle to balance my inner introvert and desire for social connection was experienced by other Tuckies. This shared internal dilemma enabled me to find belonging. As I continued to invest in Tuck, my relationships expanded beyond current students to alumni, which made my connection to Tuck even more enriching.

As I reached out to alumni at various stages of their careers, I began to see a global community.

• After my Global Expedition (GIX) was canceled, I worked with Professor Ramon Lecuona Torras, Professor of Strategy, to set up a Tuck alumnus meeting in Mexico City during spring break. Federico Jose Amorim T'21 came from Monterrey to Mexico City to host the meeting. Additionally, Muyambi Muyambi T’18 and Edgar Aguilar Meza T’15 welcomed the 15 current Tuck students, a T’24 and TP’24. Even abroad, the Tuck community came together to welcome us in Mexico.
   
• As I was evaluating a job offer, I messaged Meg Gomsak T’14, who I was connected to by Lynn Niu T’21. Our relationship grew from our candid conversation about spring recruiting. Meg's wise words of encouragement and stories uplifted me during an emotionally brutal recruiting period. Since our initial conversation, she's acted as my mentor—constantly supporting and counseling me throughout my recruiting journey. A relationship I hope to continue to foster even past spring recruiting.
   
• When I messaged Steve Tseng T’01 to chat, instead of jumping on a zoom call, he welcomed me and other Tuck students to his house for lunch. Little did I know, this was the same Tseng whose namesake is Byrne study room 206. Prior to meeting Steve, I dreamt that one day my family name will be written on the walls at Tuck like the Tseng name is for Byrne 206. As one of the few rooms at Tuck with an Asian family name, meeting the Tseng family reduced the barrier between where I am today and where I hope to be. The family’s easy-going personality contrasted with the family’s status at Tuck reimagined my views of achievability.

By fostering my relationships and connecting with the greater Tuck community, I realized my MBA isn’t over. In fact, my bond with Tuck will continue to grow and strengthen even after I graduate. As I rise in the ranks, I trust the Tuck community will continue to support and celebrate my journey as it does so today. I’m honored to take on my upcoming role as a Tuck alumna. I look forward to upholding the tight-knit culture of Tuck as alumni have paved the way for me.

Cindy Yan T’22 grew up in California and received her BA in International Studies from University of California, Irvine. Prior to starting business school, Cindy worked in digital marketing at Leaf Group. At Tuck, Cindy served as co-chair of the Tuck Diversity Conference, is involved with Tuck Mentors, and is a Small Group Dinner co-chair.

Throughout the month of May, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities will offer a number of events and programs to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. AAPIHM 2022’s theme, Constellations, explores the ways in which each member of the AAPI community creates connections with each other and with other marginalized communities. Each constellation represents the solidarities formed across time and space, symbolizing transnational and transcultural strength. 

In celebration of AAPIHM, we asked members of our AAPI community to reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions.

Hanah Bae T’23

What accomplishment are you most proud of? 

I came to Tuck knowing the next two years would be transformative. The experience I am most proud of so far is speaking at TuckTalks this past November. I had watched TuckTalks virtually before I came to school and was impressed by the emotional depth and expressiveness that past speakers demonstrated. I was looking forward to that same emotional openness among my classmates when I first stepped onto campus. But with the frenzy of nearly 300 unique individuals meeting each other for the first time, I couldn’t immediately find that same sense of vulnerability that the TuckTalks speakers exhibited. After thinking through what it would look like for me to speak in a room full of my new classmates, all virtual strangers, I decided to bite the bullet and share my story. 

I spent a month crafting my story alongside the other TuckTalks coaches and speakers. The journey was nerve-wracking as I would laugh at shared jokes among classmates, power through cases for classes, then return to my room to dig through my memory for the moments that elated and dismayed, to trick my senses into remembering what they were feeling in the rooms where those moments happened. And to go through this roller coaster of emotions as I was still getting to know everyone, I worried about what everyone would think of me after they heard my story. What if they thought I was weak? What if they thought I didn't belong? With these inner voices in the background, I finished the final draft of my talk and took the podium. 

I used to believe that my story made me so different from everyone else, especially those that are privileged to attend prestigious institutions like ours. I thought that being a low-income first-generation college student from a Korean immigrant family meant it would be harder for me to find people here who spoke like me, who shared my sense of humor, who felt the same pangs of duty and familial pride. Speaking at TuckTalks taught me that our stories unite us regardless of age, race, gender, or family background. Classmates whom I had never talked to before, who shared completely different backgrounds from me, came and found me for weeks after I gave my talk to share that my story resonated with them. Though we may not all show it openly, we each have stories that brought us here to Tuck and that shaped us to be the kind, bright, and thoughtful leaders we are today. 

Because of what I learned through my experience, I decided to become a co-chair of TuckTalks. I'm excited for all the new stories to come. 

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of school? 

What keeps me busy is my side hustle as an influencer! I started creating Instagram content during the pandemic to document my skincare journey, and now beauty brands reach out to me to create ads for them. My Instagram gives me a creative outlet that lets me zone out from all the stresses of recruiting and school assignments. It's crazy to think about monetizing a passion, but I just signed a manager to help organize my brand deals and I'm suuuuuper excited to keep creating fun content.  

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?    

I've been listening to this new podcast called Feeling Asian that's hosted by two Korean American comedians. Their conversations are always hilarious, but they also get deep into talking about issues that are familiar to kids who grew up in the US as children of immigrants. It's a common inside joke among Asian Americans that we had to grow up holding in our emotions, so a podcast dedicated to sharing our feelings openly is cathartic. They recently interviewed Lisa Ling and it was amazing to hear her get so real about imposter syndrome when she is so celebrated in the journalism industry. 

Hanah Bae is a first-year student at Tuck and a Korean American from Chicago. Prior to business school, she worked in the healthcare industry for six years (three years as a researcher in clinical research, three years as a consultant in healthcare consulting). She graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts from Cairn University and an MSEd in Mental Health and Counseling from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Joshua Feng T’14

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical? 

To me, diversity, equity, and inclusion is about bringing people together to embrace our differences and enrich one another. It's critical because of how it expands our perspectives, reveals our biases, increases our empathy, and challenges us to grow. It's also hard. I think most humans naturally want to fit in and therefore feel pressure to conform, increasingly so as environments become homogeneous. I felt this growing up in a town that was 99% white. I desperately wanted to fit in, and the way to fit in was to hide my Asianness as much as possible, which affected my personal identity but also perpetuated the groupthink that was already in place. 

How would you describe your life philosophy? What do you believe are the components of a “good” life?

As a dedicated Christian, my life philosophy is to love God and to love others (but to be clear, I'm not particularly good at either). I've found that love, which actually demands great sacrifice, brings me lasting fulfillment while most other pursuits in life simply leave me wanting more. 

In your opinion, what makes a good leader? 

A good leader combines conviction with humility and helps others become the best versions of themselves by inspiring, empowering, and investing in them.  

What’s something about you only a few people know? 

I didn't speak English when I started attending school as my parents spoke exclusively Mandarin at home. As I began learning English, I developed a lisp which was unfortunately pointed out to me by other kids. I was too embarrassed to ask for help, so I experimented with different fixes and eventually corrected it myself over many years. I'm not actually sure if it's 100% correct today, so I get the occasional fear that it's still lingering in my speech somewhere. 
 

Josh Feng is a vice president of product management and global lead of the Consumer Engagement practice at Mastercard. In this role, he is responsible for growing and shaping the direction of the Consumer Engagement practice, which brings together services, technology, and proprietary data to help other organizations build deeper customer relationships. Josh joined Mastercard through its acquisition of SessionM, a Boston-based martech startup, where he formed and led the strategy and analytics team. Previously, he was a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and worked in M&A at a boutique investment bank. Josh received a B.S. in Finance from Pepperdine University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Many Voices, One Tuck celebrates the stories of our vibrant and diverse community. What’s your story? Email Community, Culture, and Engagement if you’d like to contribute to the MVOT project.

Note: MVOT is open to members of the Tuck community, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, TEE and Tuck Bridge participants, and MHCDS graduates.

The value proposition of graduating from a top MBA program includes the opportunity to join an expansive network of business professionals. With more than 11,000 MBA alumni in leadership roles throughout the globe, it’s no wonder that Tuckies are eager to tap into this incredibly loyal and powerful alumni network. What’s even more impressive is Tuck’s commitment to continued support of its alumni through lifelong career support in the form of career exploration, self-assessment, general career guidance, networking techniques, and much more. Join our conversation with Heather Law as she sheds light on the best ways to connect with Tuck alums and demonstrates the valuable lifelong resources available to all Tuck alumni.

Tuck Alumni Stories

Browse the diverse career journeys of Tuck alums:

• Meera Bhatia T'04, Fabletics
• Vincent Wu T'11, Newsbreak
• Blair Crichton T'18, Karana

Additional Insights from Career Services

Join Andy Kaestle T'17, associate director of Career Services, as he speaks with fellow Tuck team members and community members about their expertise, including networking and career exploration tips.

Listen to more episodes

Takunda Ndoro T’22 and Seare Kidane T’23 discuss their experiences at the HBS Africa Business Conference and key takeaways from its theme “Reimagining the Road Ahead.”

Takunda Ndoro T’22

One of the best things about my second year at Tuck has been the freedom to interact with other top professionals and MBAs in ways that were nearly impossible last year due to COVID. The African Business Conference at Harvard Business School was an event that capitalized on this feeling, bringing together Africa’s most talented and ambitious students, pundits, and business practitioners for a two-day extravaganza of a conference that, I believe, had something for everyone.  

For someone like me, a second-year MBA interested in African venture capital and consulting, Harvard’s 18 panels—featuring distinguished speakers like TLcom Capital’s founder Maurizio Caio and African FinTech legend Dare Okoudjou—were the main highlight, as they helped add real-world context to Africa’s ever-shifting and growing business environment. Receiving firsthand accounts of other similarly educated professionals who have blazed paths of success in various industries was worth the entry fee alone.  

Similarly, being in proximity to keynote speakers like H.E. John Dramani Mahama, the former President of Ghana, and Hakeem Belo Osagie, one of Africa’s premier business leaders, was an obvious pleasure and learning opportunity. Indeed, when I wasn’t nodding furiously to or clapping in approval at a speaker’s keynote address, I often found my eyes casually wandering over the audience in awe of the excellence around me. Putting myself in these positions has not only given me an idea of how success on the African continent can work, but it has also increased my confidence as a (future) professional—as I found myself interacting with many people I have cause to admire. Additionally, the timeliness of the content being presented at the conference, whose panel topics ranged from intra-African trade to cryptocurrency, made many of us feel like the future of the continent was unfolding in front of us right then and there. 

With all this in mind, it feels like the great social aspects of the conference, like Saturday’s Afrobeats-inspired gala (which was undoubtedly the main draw for many MBAs), were just the icing on an enormously fulfilling cake. I find it funny and telling of the quality of the conference, that the great parties thrown during and after it felt like welcome embellishment. 

I thank Tuck for sponsoring our trip, as both the networking and the learnings of the conference will stay with me as I move forward with my career. 
 

Takunda Ndoro is from Harare, Zimbabwe, and has lived and traveled all over the world. He received a B.A. in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park before working in financial services at an investment bank. He hopes to pursue a career in marketing and sales after Tuck.  

Seare Kidane T’23

The HBS Africa conference was an amazing opportunity to learn more about business opportunities within Africa and represent Tuck’s close-knit community. The theme of the conference was “Reimagining the Road Ahead” and many of the panel topics centered on how MBA students can transform the perception of doing business in Africa. There was one panel where a guest speaker discussed how MBA students can help fight the single-story view of Africa as one country by including the continent in business discussions in a thoughtful manner, similar to other regions. This made me feel very liberated given my FYP, which focuses on Africa diaspora engagement, and my long-term VC goals to invest in EdTech within Africa.

In addition to programming, this conference gave me the opportunity to reflect on how strong relationships are amongst Tuck’s minority students, despite the program’s smaller size. I always value quality over quantity and Tuck’s representation at these conferences demonstrates how inclusive our community is.

The conference allowed me to also build bonds with other MBA students from diverse backgrounds and I hope to take some of their diversity best practices to add to the intimate fabric of Tuck.

Seare Kidane was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia to Eritrean refugees who taught him the importance of intellectual curiosity and resiliency at an early age. He received a BBA in Business Economics from Georgia State before pursuing a career in banking. He hopes to leverage his experience at Tuck for a career in venture capital investing.

Admitted Students Weekend (ASW) is here—we can’t wait to meet you, T’24s!

Taking place April 8-9, ASW is an opportunity to better acquaint yourself with the Tuck community and form connections with peers in the Class of 2024. This year, ASW will be offered in a hybrid format. Whether you can join us in Hanover or will participate in the ASW fun from afar, we will deliver programming that immerses you, your future classmates, and incoming partners in the Tuck community so you can experience the vibrancy of Tuck firsthand! We can't wait to hear your questions and share our own journeys to Tuck!

Your 2022 ASW Co-Chairs
Sansha, Tory, Elizabeth, Jigar, Sherry, and Seare

Meet the 2022 ASW Co-Chairs

Tory Waldstein T'23

Hometown
Needham, MA, United States

Education
Harvard University, B.A. in Government

Prior Work Experience
Consulting: 2 years working at Capco focused on Financial Services firms primarily within operations and technology

Health-tech: 2.5 years working at Clarify Health, a health-tech start-up focused on building the largest data set in health care to deliver analytics solutions to payers, providers, and life science companies

Recruiting for
Health Care

Tuck Activities
Health Care Club, Consulting Club, Tripod Hockey, Soccer Club, Tennis Club, exploring the Upper Valley with friends (primarily the restaurants and ski mountains)

Sherry Yang T'23

Hometown
Toronto, ON, Canada

Education
McMaster University, H. B. Health Science, Master of Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization

Prior Work Experience
1.5 years in pharmaceutical deal licensing, 2.5 years in healthcare consulting (advising major pharmaceutical companies on go-to-market strategy, business development, etc.), 1.5 years in internal strategy in the cannabis sector

Recruiting for
Investment Banking

Tuck Activities
Finance Club, Admissions Ambassador, Next50 Fellow, WIB Conference Co-Chair, Center for Healthcare, Investment Club, Drinking & Dining in the Hanover/Boston/NYC area, Petting dogs at Sachem

Elizabeth Barry T'23

Hometown
Chappaqua, NY, United States

Education
Hamilton College, B.A. in Economics & History

Prior Work Experience
Consulting: 3 years working within Grant Thornton’s Business Consulting practice, focusing primarily on digital transformations in the healthcare and not-for-profit spaces

Recruiting for
General Management, Brand Management, Strategy

Tuck Activities
General Management Club, Tuck Community Consulting, Glen Tuck Society, Adam Smith Society, Admissions Ambassador, Tripod Hockey, Tuck Women in Business, Tuck Outdoor Club, and exploring breweries in the Upper Valley

Jigar Bhakta T'23

Hometown
Manhattan Beach, CA, United States

Education
Middlebury College, B.A. in Economics & Mathematics

Prior Work Experience
Investment Banking: 3 years at Citigroup, structuring high yield asset-backed securitizations for state and local U.S. municipalities

Recruiting for
Consulting (Interning with Bain & Co. in Denver, CO)

Tuck Activities
Admissions Ambassador, TuckStuff Associate, CBGS Associate, Glen Tuck Society, Tripod Hockey, Ski and Snowboard Club, Squash Club, Tuck Community Consulting, Peer Support Counselor, and unearthing the best roadside diner in the Upper Valley

Seare Kidane T'23

Hometown
Atlanta, GA, United States

Education
Georgia State University, B.B.A. in Business Economics

Prior Work Experience
Corporate Banking: 7 years at HSBC, leading credit approvals for international corporates, and 2 years at Truist Bank (fka “BB&T”), credit underwriting domestic corporates

Recruiting for
Consulting/Technology

Tuck Activities
Black Student Association, Tuck Africa Club, Technology Club, Investment Club, Next50 Associate, ASW Co-Chair

Sansha Cornelio T'23

Hometown
Mumbai, India

Education
B.Com & M.Com, Narsee Monjee, University of Mumbai
Chartered Accountancy (Indian-CPA equivalent), Institute of Chartered Accountants of India

Prior Work Experience
Venture Debt Investing - Alteria Capital (2019-2021)
Mergers and Acquisitions Consulting - Ernst and Young (2017-2019)

Recruiting for
Strategy/Impact Consulting, Technology

Tuck Activities
Student Board – International Experience Chair, ASW Co-Chair, Next50 Fellow, Admissions Ambassador, MIINT, Tuck Community Consulting, South Asia Business Association, Tuck Emerging Markets Conference, basically FOMO-ing my way through B-school and making the most of every event/club at Tuck

Pictured above: Co-Chairs of this past fall's Tuck Women in Business Conference

There aren’t many places where you really see a high representation of women in the room. And there are even fewer places where women are encouraged to bring their full selves and share their wisdom. Coming from wealth management and the startup world, it was not unusual to be one of the few women in the room, especially one of the few Black women.

Then, I came to Tuck. As a Dartmouth undergraduate alumna, I knew that there were active initiatives to bring more diversity and women representation to campus. However, it was entirely different to experience it firsthand here at Tuck. When I arrived, I found myself surrounded by not just highly intelligent women as fellow students, but also by accomplished women faculty members and staff. These are women who revel in being smart and excelling in their careers and industries.

Women professors at Tuck aren’t just teaching the “soft” side of business, as important as those skills are—they are also destroying the societal notion that women are terrible at hard skills like mathematics and analysis. You can spend hours geeking out with Professor Lindsey Leininger about the analysis of health care systems or discussing social media impact and pathways with Professor Lauren Grewal. Just spend one day with Professor Leslie Robinson and you will find you can do accounting in both the United States and Europe.

Exhibiting hard skills doesn’t stop with women faculty. At Tuck, it is completely normal for female students to lead data analysis and programming, or receive offers in male-dominated fields like investment banking. In class, professors are just as likely to ask female students for quick numbers analysis as the male students.

I’m proud to be the programming and inclusion co-chair of the long-time Tuck Women in Business club, which exists to create community, share resources, and build skills to help all women become successful business leaders. Tuck WIB strives to create an equitable experience for all Tuckies and an environment where women at Tuck can thrive. We want Tuck women to be known for their unparalleled leadership. We support them in developing those qualities and skills through coffee chats, networking and events, faculty presentations, and more. Women in Business creates a foundational network of support for you to be the best version of you possible. The Tuck WIB network really seeks to reverse that societal pressure to dumb yourself down and helps quiet the societal whispers that you aren’t good enough because you are a woman.

When you see and have access to women who have thrived by stepping into their intelligence and themselves, you realize you can too.

Shows like The Bold Type, Girlfriends, and Living Single showcase women in high power industries who are surrounded by fellow supportive women. Women in Business at Tuck is where those stories begin. While the rest of the world may pressure women and girls to appear dumber than they are¹, I’ve experienced two years of being in the company of leader-minded women who aren’t afraid to be fantastic and are thriving.

And now, so will I.

I want to ask you: Who do you think you can become when you are provided with the support to thrive, not just survive? Are you interested in continuing this discussion and learning more about Women at Tuck? Reach out to Tuck Women in Business.

Learn more about Cynthia Madu T’22 through our One Tuck, Many Voices story project.

References

¹ University of Warwick. (2014, August 5). Girls feel they must 'play dumb' to please boys, study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 27, 2022 from ScienceDaily.

This past month, with help from the Tuck Startup Incubator, I launched my business XONylons. XONylons is a tights subscription service founded out of the frustration that comes with shopping for tights. As a young stockbroker on Wall Street, I wore tights almost every day and hated going out of my way to buy them, only to inevitably go back a few days later because they would rip. On top of that, I always wasted so much time in the store trying to figure out the color, size, and quality. (Is more expensive always better—who knows?)

XONylons solves all of these problems by keeping things simple. We currently offer three sizes, four shades, and two different qualities (the only difference being the thickness) of tights. Everything is standardized across all products—making it easy for everyone to find their perfect pair. Our medium-quality box sells for $35 and our high-quality box for $45, and each comes with five pairs of tights.

Additionally, as a female entrepreneur with a company aimed at solving a problem professional women experience, I wanted to make sure the business continued to give back to the community in some way. We donate one dollar of every box sold to organizations that support women in business.

The Tuck Startup Incubator has been a great resource for XONylons and for me personally. Interacting with other students who are in similar positions has been invaluable, as we can share our experiences with each other. If I am working through a business problem, the group always has wonderful ideas and advice to share that help guide me. Daniella Reichstetter (faculty advisor for the Center for Entrepreneurship and clinical professor of business administration) and Eileen O’Toole (director for the Center for Entrepreneurship) do an excellent job of bringing in guests that help everyone in the Incubator achieve their next set of goals. For XONylons in particular, it has been useful to connect with many of the guests that join us in a one-on-one meeting later on. All the guests are always open to chatting more and providing specific insights for those that reach out to them individually.

From these conversations, I’ve been able to learn more about how other startup founders manage their supply chain, digital marketing, and hiring—all of which have influenced the business decisions I have made. I am looking forward to continuing to participate in the Incubator in the spring term and growing XONylons, as well as giving back to the community of professional women as we do it.

Ania Aliev graduated from Trinity College in 2018 with a B.S. in psychology and a double minor in Russian and Spanish. She then joined a sales and trading desk as an institutional sales associate, where she covered clients in Boston and Canada. After three years, she left to come to Tuck. Ania is very involved with entrepreneurship and the Women in Business Club at Tuck.

Where have they gone? Where are those real conversations about who we are as people, how we became the person we became, the journeys we’re on, the kind of career we’re crafting? Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management at Tuck, found himself asking these questions before launching The Sydcast in 2019. The podcast, which features intimate and informative conversations with an array of guests, was inspired by this desire for deeper storytelling and human connection.

In each episode, Professor Finkelstein sits down with entrepreneurs, community leaders, professional athletes, politicians, academics, authors, musicians, and more—including many members of the Tuck community. Listen to some recent conversations with Tuck alumni guests, as they discuss everything from imposter syndrome to travel in the age of COVID.

My biggest fear when arriving at Tuck was that I was too old to start an MBA. I’d always dreamed of the journey, but came up with several excuses and put it off for 10 years after college. When I received the happy call from Tuck Admissions, many friends suggested that I wouldn't have much to learn in a classroom anymore.

However, now well into the program, I am pleasantly surprised by the inclusive learning experiences—both in the classroom and outside of it. I feel like a welcome part of multiple communities; my voice is always heard and respected, regardless of my age, life stage, and origin.
 

Study Group Experience

I took the above picture during a study group section meeting. A section consists of 12 study groups, making the learning experience even more compelling! My first study group was made up of students from various backgrounds, including entrepreneurship, consulting, marketing, asset management, and technology. After the first meeting, I became anxious about the value I could provide—all the other members seemed highly accomplished in ways I wasn’t.

I initially made the wrong efforts to prove my value—trying to always be ahead of schedule and the first one to do the team assignments. However, I wasn’t paying attention to how that attitude negatively impacted others. By overcompensating for the worry I felt, I was making others feel the same. After a couple of rounds of straightforward discussions, our group finally started to distribute the work equally and paid attention to everyone's opportunities to contribute. This breakthrough was crucial, especially when we began to have different priorities a few months into the recruiting season. Although it wasn’t an easy process, we learned to respect and empathize with others' situational challenges.

For me, this was an immersive learning opportunity in helping to build and manage an effective team.
 

Professor Kopalle quotes professors from other courses. I really appreciate how classes are designed to fit together.

Classroom Experience

Two of my favorite courses so far are Financial Accounting with Professor Leslie Robinson and Analytics with Professor Praveen Kopalle—both from Tuck’s renowned core curriculum. Throughout my pre-MBA career, I assumed that these subjects would not be relevant to my future career, and intentionally avoided them. However, I learned so much from them that I even started to think I was good at the subjects!

Professors Robinson and Kopalle taught beyond the practical knowledge and frameworks of their subjects, communicating how the subject matter was fun and meaningful as well. Their enthusiasm stimulated everyone's curiosity, despite diverse backgrounds and career interests.
 

My fall term Tripod Hockey team. Everyone demonstrated a profound fighting spirit and team effort to win together.

Extracurricular Experience (Tripod)

Tripod Hockey is another excellent example of a learning opportunity that I didn’t expect. I always enjoyed playing sports but had never even been on ice. At first, I felt a little unsure of the inclusive messages conveyed by the captains because I was literally the worst player on the ice. However, they always made sure that I felt part of the team. I made many mistakes, but I was never laughed at by the captains or my teammates. I appreciated enthusiastic plays on the ice, tactics discussions in the locker room, and post-game reflections in the parking lot.

I remember when I asked about the communal environment at Tuck in the admissions interview. The interviewer responded that "We don't compete against each other, but it doesn’t mean we are not a competitive school. We compete with each other, allowing others to be part of your game and share the joy in victories.” This is consistent in Tripod Hockey, and I learned how inclusive leadership could be carried out in a competitive world.
 

Kakeru Tsubota T’23 is an enterprise tech enthusiast from Tokyo, Japan. He is transitioning his tech career from regional sales to a Silicon Valley-based strategist. At Tuck, Kakeru is a part of Tech Club, Design and Innovation Club, Center for Digital Strategies, and Soccer Club. He holds a BA from International Christian University in Tokyo. You can follow Kakeru on LinkedIn.

By Tuck Career Services

If you’re going to dedicate time, effort, and resources toward landing your dream job, probably best to ensure it’s the right role for you! Hear from Sarah DiGiacomo, who shares her perspective on why career exploration is such a critical piece of the process. This episode will be followed by a mini-series of episodes focused on individualized career preparation and several interviews with students who have successfully navigated targeted job searches.

The Power of the Tuck Network

• Explore profiles of Tuck alumni, including Melissa Llarena T’10, who shares her tips for designing your career journey.
• Learn more about the support and guidance that Career Services offers Tuck students as they pursue their personal career paths 

Additional Insights from Career Services

Join Andy Kaestle T'17, associate director of Career Services, as he speaks with fellow Tuck team members and community members about their expertise, including networking and resume writing tips.

Listen to more episodes

Members of the Tuck and Dartmouth community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Black Legacy Month.

Anthony Fosu D’24

HomeTown Keyport, New Jersey
Dartmouth activities OPAL, Student Assembly, Christian Union, Agape, NAACP’s peer-mentorship program, Apologia Journal

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?

I am most honored by my contributions to the community during my time at Dartmouth. This includes my service on the Dartmouth Student Assembly, coordinating mental health programs for Black students, and serving students as an Undergraduate Advisor.

What is your vision for the future? Or, what do you believe will be the defining issue(s) of the next 20 years?

I believe that the most pertinent upcoming issues we need to address will involve expanding access to higher education for most students, increasing technological literacy, and providing sustainable solutions for housing, mental health, and transportation.

What have you recently read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I highly recommend Professor Jamila Michener’s book Fragmented Democracy, which provides a highly in-depth look at Medicaid, Federalism, and the role of politics in the lives of people on the ground. It profiles the experiences of folks that have interacted with the American health care system, humanizing issues that often impact people’s lived experiences.

Dean Angela Brizant

Role at Dartmouth Assistant Dean in the Office of Pluralism and Leadership (OPAL)
Pre-Dartmouth Over a decade of experience as an educator, counselor, and advocate in both higher education and K-12. 

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?

I am most proud of being awarded “Teacher of the Year.” I was the 12th grade founding AP Psychology and African American History teacher at Johnson College Prep in Chicago. At that point in my career, I had worked with CEOs across the Tri-state area, and I had been an administrator at Long Island University and Northwestern University. Yet, I found the work of being a first-year teacher to be the most challenging and rewarding. It was my responsibility to make sure every student in the senior class learned and understood my course material, and I took my charge very seriously. I created effective scaffolds and supports and used a variety of teaching strategies to reach every student. I arrived at school very early and left very late working on my craft. It was not only important to me that my students learned, but that they also had fun along their academic journey. So, to have my hard work recognized in this way filled my heart with joy and pride.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life, career, or altered your way of thinking.

In 2015, I was selected to be an inaugural member of the Surge Fellowship, which is a cohort-based experience that unites and accelerates emerging leaders of color in education. The fellowship altered my way of thinking, in that it challenged and empowered me to bring my whole self to my work. I learned that the myriad of experiences that constitute who I am make me a strong leader, a resilient leader, and an authentic leader.

What have you recently, read, watched, or listened to that you enjoyed and would highly recommend to others?

I recently watched an interview of the great author Toni Morrison, by the Connecticut Forum in 2001, where she discusses finding meaning. During the discussion, the interviewer asks, “How do you survive whole in a world where we’re all victims of something?”

Toni Morrison states, “…Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can. And behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It’s that, that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting. More complex. More demanding. Evil is silly.”

 

Across the Dartmouth and Tuck campus, Black History Month–which we call Black Legacy Month–is cause for celebration, education, and awareness. Throughout this month, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities have offered numerous events and programs recognizing the Black experience and engaging the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.

Banners around Darmouth's Green feature Black faculty, staff, and students. A larger banner hangs over Main Street in downtown Hanover, taking the celebration from campus to the community. Dartmouth’s inaugural Senior Diversity Officer, Dr. Shontay Delalue shared her story as the month kicked off and the Black Students at Tuck Association (BSAT) hosted Tuck’Tails, a long-standing Tuck tradition of fellowship and food held on most Thursday evenings. BSAT also sponsored a movie night, inviting 50 classmates to watch the recent Netflix hit: The Harder They Fall. The group also held space for each other over small group dinners and will connect with peers from all over the country as the group hosted the annual Black Ski Weekend.

This week, we wrap up our celebration with the Dartmouth Black Alumni Panel, featuring Tuck alumna Nykia Wright T’09, and next Monday we conclude with keynote remarks from activist Angela Davis.

I marvel that despite a painful and disgraceful history of ill-treatment, Black Americans have made our mark on everything from civil rights and the justice system to agriculture, aerospace, sports, art, medicine, literature, technology, politics, education, and so much more.

As Black Legacy Month draws to a close, I encourage you—no matter your race, ethnicity, or creed—to think of the life and legacy you want to create and what kind of person you want to be. Learn a little more about some of our community members and how they are defining and crafting their own legacies, in our new One Tuck, Many Voices blog series.

There is no one “right” way to be an activist, ally, or advocate for equity and inclusion. No one else can impact the world the way that you can and, with your unique set of gifts and talents, the world needs you more than ever.

Wishing you well, 

Dia 

Dia Draper (she/her)
Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Many Voices. One Tuck. 

Members of the Tuck and Dartmouth community reflect on their goals, accomplishments, inspirations, and passions in honor of Black Legacy Month.

Dale Holly MHCDS’23

HomeTown Malvern, Arkansas
Education University of Arkansas College of Medicine
Current role Partner, United Digestive, Atlanta

Who do you most admire and look up to? Who inspires you and why?

I most admire my father, Clent T. Holly, as he taught me the value of hard work, preparedness, and steadfastness. He was a wonderful father who provided a loving, nurturing, and jovial environment underscored by high expectations of myself and my siblings.

My wife and children inspire me to be a better husband and father within my family. This process of re-evaluation is foundational to my pursuit of excellence in every facet of my life.  I firmly believe that building a healthy, successful personal life is essential to my ability to thrive and flourish in this complex world.

What’s something about you only a few people know?

Only a few of my closest friends and family know that I am a sports historian.  I love the nature of sports and how it represents a microcosm of life.

What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for you today, and in your words, why is it so critical?

DEI means a healthy appreciation for dissenting opinions, an equal voice at the table, and an opportunity to showcase one’s talent. When you embrace diversity, you create a powerful oneness that transcends race, culture, ethnicity, religion, and geography. This is so critical to our global success as DEI is a “force multiplier.”

Marquist Allen Bridge'21, D’24

Hometown Davis, California
Dartmouth Activities Dartmouth Football, Undergraduate Research Assistant, Student Leadership Board, Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth, Tuck Bridge

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I was recently appointed as the Undergraduate Research Assistant for Tuck Professor Gail Taylor. Our focus is on quantifying, analyzing, and implementing the solutions to bridge the gap for marginalized, first-generation professionals in corporate America. We have been collaborating with top professors, researchers, and professionals to uplift and bring to light the talent that is often overlooked based on names or skin color. Being able to work towards a more equitable future at this level is what I'm most proud of.

What keeps you busy? How do you like to spend your time outside of school and work?

Outside of school and research, I am a varsity athlete on Dartmouth's football team. Originally, I'm from California, so coming all the way out to Dartmouth was a daunting idea. All until I met my teammates and coaching staff. To be a part of the team gives me a family away from home on and off the field, and we all keep each other busy.

Describe an ah-ha moment for you—a defining moment that changed the course of your life or altered your way of thinking.

The biggest ah-ha moment for me came when I was in disbelief that I received a lower grade than expected in a class this past winter term. Shortly after, I was randomly scrolling through YouTube and found the audio of "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightengale—the character development radio voice of the 1950s. Many things on his broadcast moved me but one thing stuck with me. "Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind."

 

Networking is often viewed as something that only benefits the employer. Join Deirdre O’Donnell to learn how you can leverage networking to learn about potential employers, highlight your skills and experience, as well as start to build relationships with future co-workers. Deirdre opens up about the pivotal role networking played in launching and advancing her 25-year career at Lehman Brothers, as well as the common pitfalls she sees students make when navigating the networking process.

The Power of the Tuck Network

• Explore profiles of Tuck alumni, including Michael Carusi T'93, who shares his favorite networking tips.
• Meet four T'22s who secured internships in industries outside of their pre-Tuck experience thanks in part to networking.

Additional Insights from Career Services

Join Andy Kaestle T'17, associate director of Career Services, as he speaks with fellow Tuck team members and community members about their expertise, including networking and career exploration tips.

Listen to more episodes

After the release of our DEI Strategic Review and Action Plan in October, we spent the fall term forging deeper connections with T’22s in-person after a year of hybrid connection, as well as T’23s who arrived in August with contagious energy and excitement. Our priorities were to launch the new Tuck DEI website, deliver student-focused fall term programming and events, assess our communication around DEI issues, and begin to build a sustainable infrastructure to support the next phase of our work: implementing the Action Plan.  

There is so much to do—and we want to do it all now, fast, and simultaneously—but we also know this is not realistic. Thus, we continue the work, making progress day-by-day while tending to the current needs of the community. The DEI team was energized by the chance to work with students, faculty, and staff to bring dynamic programs to Tuck this fall. From Dr. Terence Roberts’ keynote address for the Tuck Diversity Conference to T’03 Kate Jhaveri’s down-to-earth yet inspiring keynote for the Women in Business Conference.  

We were fortunate to have Jerry Won, a Tuck community favorite, visit Hanover in September to share his story and challenge students to live authentically and align their values with the culture of the organizations they work with post-MBA. In October, the Student Board requested that all newly elected members join one of the Implicit Bias workshops offered by Kara Wakefield of Dartmouth’s Office of Institutional Diversity & Equity. In November, students learned the “5 Ds” of bystander intervention, using case studies and discussion to add actionable tools and solutions to their inclusive leadership skillsets. Finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the student co-chairs of the Mental Health & Wellness Initiative (MHWI) for their hard work getting the newest group of Peer Support Counselors through the required training in Mental Health First Aid and Suicide Prevention. 

We also made space for the tough conversations and the times when we did not get it right. One example is how T’23 students came together for two “Real Talk” sessions after students expressed the need for structured, moderated discussions on the heels of a controversial DEI session during Tuck Launch.  

These are just a few of the ways that student and alumni feedback have influenced the training, programs, and events that we bring to the community. On the heels of another uplifting celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. earlier this month, we are excited to welcome Black Legacy Month 2022, Lunar New Year, and the opportunities to learn, grow, and be together. 

Wishing you well, 

Dia 

Dia Draper (she/her)
Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Many Voices. One Tuck. 

Inspiring Moment of the Month

Jodi-Ann Burey

We are fortunate to host many wonderful guest speakers at Tuck throughout the academic year. The opportunity to learn from and through the experiences of some of the most dynamic people in business and academia is one of the great benefits of higher education.

Thanks to Katy Milligan D’90, T’07, program director for Dartmouth’s Master of Health Care Delivery Science (MHCDS), we were fortunate to welcome TED speaker, podcaster, creator, and health equity advocate Jodi-Ann Burey as our featured speaker for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Burey works at the intersections of race, culture, and health and draws from education, global health, entrepreneurship, and other disciplines in her work, yielding intelligent, relatable, and inspiring connections with her audience. 

Burey shared her experiences with students in both the MHCDS, and MBA programs. Her keynote address for MHCDS participants, who were in residence during her visit, was a masterclass in storytelling. During her visit, Burey also met with members of the Black Students Association at Tuck (BSAT) over breakfast and ended her visit by meeting students from the Center for Health Care and executive director Suzie Rubin. Burey answered questions ranging from navigating and checking bias (our own and others’), to imposter syndrome and living life on your own terms.  

Burey’s honest, vulnerable, and often humorous depictions of her journey to and through cancer survivorship was a gift. She shared the ways that the health care system and the professionals that care for us are frequently biased against women, folks with few financial resources, and people of color—often with dire consequences. Burey was able to challenge us to find ways to disrupt those biases while also sharing stories of compassion, connection, and hope. 
We highly recommend her TED talk on “The Myth of Bringing Your Full Authentic Self to Work”. 

Recommended Listening

Jodi-Ann Burey Podcasts:

• Black Cancer Podcast: Am I Going To Die Today
• Jodi-Ann Burey with Brene’ Brown and Ruchika Tulshyan on Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast
   

DE&I Community News

We are excited to announce the formation of the inaugural IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Action) Committee at Tuck. This committee will serve as an advisory body to Dean Draper and Dean Slaughter as we take action on the findings and recommendations of our DEI Strategic Review and the focus areas of our DEI Action Plan. Committee members include students, staff, faculty, and alumni who will contribute their unique perspectives, experiences, skills, and insights to the group via discussion and feedback. The committee will help support Tuck’s commitment to inclusive excellence in the execution of the School’s mission across our community, culture, and curriculum. 

2022 IDEA Committee Members

Tuck Association of Diverse Alumni (TADA) Looks Ahead to 2022 Plans

Though the emergence of Omicron meant 2022 rang in quietly, the New Year is still an opportunity for a fresh start. We wish you health, happiness, and success in 2022 and all the good things to come! Here are some timely updates from TADA to start off the New Year right.

TADA will host our first-ever alumni diversity conference in 2022. As we plan event details and finalize logistics, we’d love your input on conference dates and location. Please take 30 seconds to complete this survey to share your preferences.

We are also seeking two additional TADA co-chairs, as well as regional leads to host local meetups. (Drinks are always on us!) If you have passion for and a commitment to DEI at Tuck and are curious about getting more involved, email us at hellotada.tuck@gmail.com.

Cheers,

Lisha Davis T’10 
Ramsey Jay Jr. T’05 
Joanna Jen T’08 
TADA Co-chairs 
 

Next50 Expands, Welcoming New Student Fellows and Associates

Next50, now a program under Tuck’s DEI initiatives and Dean Draper’s leadership, expanded to a team of 12 fellows and 15 associates who are working with Tuck faculty, administration, and students. This year’s fellows and associates are leading the following initiatives: writing cases that include diverse protagonists, working with faculty to add more diverse examples to the curriculum, and creating a toolkit to facilitate this work. Next50 is also launching a DEI-focused case competition thanks to a generous alumni gift from Win D’72 T’73 and Christie Neuger. We look forward to a bright and productive year ahead with a fantastic and passionate team! 

A New Club at Tuck: Introducing LIFT

Before this academic year, Tuck did not have formal communities for students who came from low-income families or were the first in their families to pursue higher education. A group of T’22s and T’23s collaborated over the summer and fall terms to propose and ultimately secure recognition of LIFT: Low Income and First-Generation at Tuck. This club aims to provide a space for open conversation as well as resources to enable academic and professional success.

An inaugural dinner and community forum was held in the fall term, with more events to come. Stay tuned, or contact Alan Rice T’23, Andrew Key T’23, or Jonathan Diaz T’22 for more information!
 

Student Board Election Results

The recent T’23 Student Board election yielded Tuck’s first African American female Vice President, Destinée Mentor-Richards, and resulted in a record number of Consortium students on the board. Congratulations to all elected students!

Dartmouth Welcomes Chloe Poston to the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity (IDE)

Chloe (pronounced with a silent ‘e’) joined the Office of IDE as associate vice president of strategic initiatives in July 2021. She comes to Dartmouth from a similar role at Brown University, where she also earned her PhD in chemistry. 

Chloe is leading the newly organized diversity and inclusion team and will also help develop a campus-wide strategic plan for diversity, with the goal to create a more welcoming, inclusive, and equitable learning and working environment across Dartmouth.
Learn more about Chloe and her important work at Dartmouth.
 

DE&I Student Co-Chair Corner

With Becky Timmons T’22 and Jasmine Joda T’23 

We are excited to serve as the new DEI student co-chairs! This year, we are focused on increasing DEI learning opportunities at Tuck. We’ve held internal bias and bystander intervention trainings this academic year and are looking forward to piloting different types of sessions—such as simulation games— and providing incentive-based programming to reward individuals doing the work to become more aware and educated allies. We’re also working to increase a sense of belonging for students at Tuck. We launched a coffee chat initiative called “Tell Me More” to encourage connections across the student community and will be launching an anonymous dropbox called “Community Corner” to provide students a structured process for giving suggestions and feedback on issues, topics, programs and events related to DEI at Tuck.

We’re also looking forward to launching a Return on Inclusion (ROI) Fund to promote events that are focused on creating unique experiences and fostering a sense of belonging in the Tuck community.  

Becky is originally from Newtown, Connecticut and earned her BS in Management from the University of Connecticut. Prior to Tuck, she was a digital marketing manager at Achievement Network, an education nonprofit. Jasmine is originally from Bloomington, Illinois and earned her BS in Accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to Tuck, she was a management consultant at Accenture. 

History, Heritage, Honor and Upcoming Events

Black Legacy Month
Throughout the month of February, the Tuck and Dartmouth communities will offer a number of events and programs to celebrate BLM. Keep checking for upcoming events in celebration of Black Legacy Month at Tuck and Dartmouth, including:

• January 30: Black Student Association (BSAT) Film, The Harder They Fall
• January 31: Speed Stories with Senior Diversity Officer Shontay Delalue
• February 3: Haiti Roundtable - Beyond the Headlines
• February 3: Black Legacy Month TuckTails Hosted by BSAT
• February 6: Field Day
• February 23: Dartmouth Alumni Panel including Nykia Wright T'09
• February 24: Film: Freda, Sponsored by AAAS
• February 25–27: Black Ski Weekend
• Throughout February: Black Excellence Banner Spotlight around the Dartmouth Green

The purpose of Black Legacy Month is to recognize the Black experience, explore topical issues in the Black community while giving context to a vision of what the Black future could be, and engage the Dartmouth community in an appreciation for all that Black people have contributed to the campus and the world at large.
 

Lunar New Year

According to Diversity for Social Impact more than 1.5 billion people around the world celebrate Lunar New Year. This year, Lunar New Year is on February 1, 2022. In Chinese culture, it is a 15-day celebration. In Vietnam, Tết Nguyên Đán lasts for up to a week. In South Korea, Seollal lasts for three days. Learn about the festival traditions, popular foods, and decorations. Check out the top 10 things to know about Lunar New Year and how to wish someone a ‘Happy New Year’ in Chinese.

Upcoming Lunar New Year events:

• January 31: Dumpling Night
• February 4: Hot Pot Small Group Dinner
• February 2: Tuck Mahjong Night
• February 8: Hezi For Dinner with artist and chef Cai Xi, hosted by The HOP
   

In Case You Missed It

In December 2021, a group of T’22s embarked on the TuckGO course “Freedom Riders 2021: Unpacking Systemic Racism in America and Its Impact for Leadership” led by Professors Ella Bell Smith and Adam Kleinbaum. The group traveled to Washington, D.C.; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA; and Montgomery, AL, visiting important cultural and heritage sites, meeting with business, academic, and civic leaders, and spending time in fellowship and reflection.
 

As part of the GIX, Tuck students and faculty visited the The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL.

When I became a student fellow of the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability and Innovation in the spring of 2020, I was excited by the prospect of helping to shape the energy industry conversation on campus. The Revers Center’s activities were an important part of my decision to apply to and attend Tuck, and I wanted to help further the Center’s mission of making Tuck the “preeminent business school for learning practical leadership in the energy industry.” Each Revers Center student fellow must complete a project, and my idea for a podcast struck while reflecting on the many outstanding conversations about energy I had with industry leaders, alumni, and fellow students at Tuck.

The energy industry encompasses a broad and diverse range of businesses—from oil and gas production, petroleum refining, and power generation to electricity transmission and energy efficiency technologies. Over the past decade, the energy sector has been undergoing a seismic change as renewable energy has become cleaner and more mainstream, and investors and consumers have demanded more efficient energy processes. I wanted to bring conversations on these topics to a wider audience—envisioning the podcast as a way to bolster the profile of the Revers Center to prospective Tuck students, alumni, and industry leaders while encouraging business school students and young professionals to consider careers in energy. The mission of the podcast, Tuck Energy Currents, became to “elevate the energy conversation at Tuck, Dartmouth, and beyond by exploring industry trends and career pathways across the energy sector.” 

I drew my initial guest list from contacts I made at Revers Center events during my two years at Tuck, as well as through my experience as a Private Equity Fellow at the Tuck Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital (CPEVC). I had developed a career interest in energy finance and the future of energy infrastructure and was simultaneously working on a CPEVC fellows project on private equity investment in the power industry. Consequently, several of my podcast guests had a finance background or were involved in energy infrastructure investment. My guests included a classmate who started a solar panel hardware manufacturing business, the CEOs of a leading independent power producer and a major petrochemical manufacturer, and the founding benefactor of the Revers Center, Dan Revers T’89. 

The first season of Tuck Energy Currents consists of 12 episodes that will be released throughout the winter. My guests and I explore the changing nature of private investment in energy infrastructure, the growth of investment in renewable power generation, the role of green banks to bring clean energy technologies to underserved communities, and the future of the electricity grid. 

Tuck Energy Currents episodes typically begin with my guest outlining the path to their current role, followed by explorations of their business, and the economic, environmental, and industry trends shaping their branch of the energy industry. Each episode concludes with guidance to audience members on pursuing careers in energy. While our initial target audience is young professionals, I think that the conversations will eventually attract a general audience interested in the business of energy. 

I started Tuck Energy Currents as an initiative that would outlive my time at Tuck, and I am very pleased to announce that a group of T’22 students is working to produce the next season of the program. Umut Asikoglu T’22, Justin Meier T’22, and Susie Peerson T’22 will be selecting guests, handling hosting duties, and editing the next series of episodes, and I cannot wait to see the imprint they make on the podcast.

I would like to thank April Salas of the Revers Center and Jim Feuille of the CPEVC for encouraging me to get this project off the ground. Thanks also go to Umut, Justin, and Susie for helping to edit podcast episodes and carrying the program into its second season. Finally, a very special thanks to Madeleine Bothe of the Revers Center for guiding me through every step of the production process. I am thrilled to contribute Tuck Energy Currents to the Revers Center, and I hope the podcast will continue to strengthen the Center as a premier venue for business school students to explore the energy sector. Happy listening!

Episodes are available on the Revers Center website, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, and other major podcast distribution platforms.

Eric Lukas is a 2021 graduate of the Tuck School of Business, where he was a Revers Center for Energy Fellow and a Private Equity Fellow. He is an associate with the Power & Utilities investment banking group at Barclays and is based in New York.