For Tuck, A New Director of Alumni Engagement

Renee Hirschberg, Tuck’s new director of Alumni Engagement, is looking for creative ways to make sure alumni are more connected than ever—to the school and to each other.

And when they depart from campus, they are anything but forgotten.

Tuck’s Alumni Engagement office is dedicated to supporting them over the many years that follow their time in the classroom. Now the newly named office has a leader tasked with envisioning and executing ways in which alumni can continue to engage with each other and the school.

Renee Hirschberg came to Tuck from the MIT Sloan School of Management where, as the senior associate director of alumni relations, she created meaningful strategic engagement opportunities for the school’s approximately 24,000 alumni. Since joining Tuck on July 17, she has been busy reaching out to alumni, getting to know them on the road and as they visit Hanover, in order to discover firsthand the strength behind what she calls, “the best and strongest alumni network in the world.”

What excites you most about this role?

Tuck is very well known among the business school world as having the number one alumni network. Being able to come to this beautiful place to work with the most loyal alumni is a dream come true. I’m incredibly excited to talk with alumni, hear their stories, and experience what makes this network so strong and cherished. I’ve already seen its strength first-hand even in the short time I’ve been here. During orientation, for example, I was struck by the passion for the Tuck community exhibited by alumni like Russell Wolff T’94 (EVP of ESPN) who returns to campus each September to speak with incoming students. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with alumni who have that kind of passion and energy invested in the school.

I also think there are a lot of exciting opportunities. In addition to the unparalleled philanthropic support of our alumni, I am looking forward to finding new and exciting avenues for alumni to volunteer and engage with the school both here in Hanover, and wherever they are around the world—whether in Shanghai, Seattle, London, New York, or San Francisco. We want them to feel as connected to Hanover and Tuck as they did when they were here attending classes.

Since joining us in July, what have you been hearing from alumni?

I’ve been reaching out to and meeting with many alumni to get to know them and ask for their input on how we can create additional engagement opportunities. However, what I’m hearing in return is, “What more can we be doing for the school?” It’s this circle of everybody wanting to help everybody, and no one is asking what’s in it for me; they’re asking what is best for the network. I think that’s incredibly powerful and it speaks volumes to the quality of this network.

What do you want alumni to know about the Alumni Engagement office? 

We’re thinking very strategically about alumni engagement and looking closely at what alumni need and want. We want to leverage the amazing alumni engagement team we have here at Tuck to create support networks to empower our alumni volunteers to create the connections that will be the most meaningful. In order to create these new opportunities, we need to continue to hear from alumni. Towards that effort, my top priority right now is getting to know alumni, understanding their needs, what meaningful engagement means to them, and developing a strategy to address those needs. I want people to feel comfortable sharing their stories and experiences with me and offering their insights.

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*This article originally appeared in print in the winter 2018 issue of Tuck Today magazine.