A RE-EDUCATION IN LEADERSHIP

Being a co-chair of Tuck Talks, where students spend tens of hours preparing a 10-minute talk to answer the question “What is a relationship or experience that fundamentally changed the way you see the world?” has been a particularly meaningful experience for me. At Tuck Talks, we operate under the assumption that everyone has a unique story to tell. These are stories you don’t necessarily hear or see on a daily basis, and we’ve been able to provide this forum where people are comfortable sharing their authentic and vulnerable viewpoints to 300 or more of their peers. Every time I sit down to talk with someone about their story, I’m both humbled and amazed by the experiences they bring with them to this institution and their willingness to share.

After this experience, I know that to harness the full potential of the people within your organization, whether they’re part of your sales force or are your CEO, you have to operate under that same assumption that every single person has a rich past—a personal history that’s filled with their life experiences and their hopes. And if we refused to acknowledge that and choose instead to see people as one-dimensional, as defined by their job, or their rank, or their class, gender, nationality, race, or some other marker of their background, we’re doing them a disservice. Our ability to develop that empathy and understanding at Tuck will directly reflect our capabilities as we move into leadership roles in the business world.

A FUTURE IN REAL ESTATE

Professor John Vogel has been instrumental in guiding me in the real estate industry. I don’t think I realized when I came to Tuck how uniquely positioned we are as students to be able to benefit from the experience and intuition of the faculty here. Many of the Tuck faculty and staff, like Professor Vogel, take the time to understand the full perspective of what you’re looking for within your personal and professional life and are able to glean the experience you’ve had in the past in order to most effectively advise you on your future. I have certainly benefited from this type of authentic engagement on my path into real estate.  

When I was in Afghanistan, I managed contracts that built infrastructure within Afghan National Army compounds. That experience really showed me how, if you built a shower facility for soldiers, for example, it impacted the way they viewed their lives and their environment—it had this distinct impact on their confidence and security and how they saw the world. I realized that working in real estate investment banking and wanting to be closer to the assets as I was when I was in Afghanistan would be a great opportunity to see the impact of the built environment in a city like Washington D.C.

THE VETERAN COMMUNITY AT TUCK

The attitude at Tuck towards veterans is overwhelmingly positive and accommodating and generous and I sincerely appreciate that part of my experience here. I was astonished and humbled when about half of the school showed up to an event that the Veterans Club puts on called “Microbrews and the Military.” It is an evening where Dean Slaughter moderates a fireside chat with a small group of Tuck vets and opens it up for questions. My classmates asked incredibly thoughtful questions and it sparked some great conversation.  

The vets club at Tuck represents every service. There’s a huge range in the amount of time served, and there are many different trajectories after Tuck. There are people who will go back to serve in their respective branch, or teach at a service academy, and of course there are an entire group of us making the jump into the private space. It makes the experience and the time we spend together even more enlightening and enjoyable, because we have so much in common in our past, but we have so much difference in the way we see our futures.