Tuck Names Luke Anthony Peña New Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid

Peña’s selection followed a comprehensive, three-month search.

In this role, Peña will lead the school’s admissions and financial aid teams and develop and implement strategies for recruiting, selecting, and enrolling MBA candidates who possess the greatest potential to become tomorrow’s wise leaders and contribute to and thrive in Tuck’s distinctly immersive learning community.

Peña previously served as director of MBA admissions at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he led its marketing and recruitment teams, and managed all external outreach including events, online programming, and social media. At Stanford GSB, he introduced and implemented data analytics to enhance recruitment and yield efforts, and created digital resources to improve relationship management with both alumni ambassadors and prospective students. A 2012 GSB graduate, Peña was previously associate director of MBA admissions, and also worked as assistant director of admissions at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism prior to joining the Stanford admissions team.

“Tuck is unparalleled in its commitment to creating and cultivating a distinctly immersive, intimate, and collaborative environment for leadership development,” said Peña. “As a community builder, you dream of partnering with alumni, students, staff, and faculty who invest in supporting and challenging one another, and in advancing Tuck’s mission to better the world of business. I am enthusiastically looking forward to deepening relationships with current and future members of this community.”

Peña’s selection followed a comprehensive, three-month search chaired by Gina Clark des Cognets T’01, chief of staff and executive director of the Office of the Dean at Tuck. He succeeds Dawna Clarke, who stepped down in late 2016 after 11 years as director of admissions to start her own admissions consulting firm.

“Achieving our mission of educating tomorrow’s wise leaders begins by attracting not only the best and brightest students, but those for whom our mission speaks the loudest,” said Matthew J. Slaughter, the Paul Danos Dean of the Tuck School and the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business. “Luke’s expertise in MBA admissions—together with his wonderful warmth and creativity—will ensure Tuck is successful in welcoming even more of those students into our community.”

“Luke stood out within a deep and highly-qualified pool of candidates as the collaborative and strategic leader we sought to lead our dynamic admissions team forward,” added des Cognets. “His energy and enthusiasm is contagious, and we look forward to working alongside him on behalf of Tuck.”

Peña holds a joint MBA/MA Education degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Business Administration and BA in Public Relations from the University of Southern California.

He begins his new appointment July 18.