Elizabeth Davis

The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

“Montana native, lover of everything fitness, forever optimist and working to make a positive impact.”

Hometown: Bozeman, Montana

Fun fact about yourself: I spent the summer after my sophomore year at Notre Dame working as a ranch hand on a sustainable grass-fed cattle ranch in Pony, Montana.

Undergraduate School and Degree: University of Notre Dame, Bachelor of Arts.

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Worn, a mission-driven creative and digital agency working with female founders to launch and grow their businesses.

Where did you intern during the summer of 2019? I spent my summer on Nike’s Social and Community Impact team focused on strategy in Portland, Oregon

Where will you be working after graduation? In venture capital at Anthemis, investing in female-founders on their Female Innovators Lab team.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

World Government Summit, COP25 & TedWomen Representative: While at Tuck, I had the opportunity to travel to Dubai, Madrid and Palm Springs to represent Tuck at three different conferences and summits.

Center for Business, Government & Society Fellow: The Business, Government & Society Fellowship enables students to deepen our understanding of the issues confronting the 21st Century global economy and shape the context in which business operates. As a Fellow at Tuck, we lead seminars, explore issues like gender parity in venture capital, and contribute to the center’s growing body of knowledge through primary research.

Alan Smith Visiting Executive Fellow: As a fellow with the Visiting Executives program, I host senior executives who come to Tuck to share their experience in and outside of the classroom, as well as engage with executives and students over lunch and dinner discussions and student roundtables.

Career Development Office Mentor: The CDO Mentor program creates opportunities for second-year students to mentor first-year students. I have two rock star mentees interested in the consumer goods sector.

Women in Business (WIB) Club: The Women in Business Club provides mentorship, networking, and career development opportunities for current students. It is a community-focused organization that encompasses social, professional, and academic pillars to foster discussion and further gender equity. One of my favorite parts of WIB has been coffee chats with prospective students.

Admissions Ambassador: As a student ambassador I help recruit the next generation of Tuckies by providing insights into Tuck’s culture, network, and career opportunities. 

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I love this question! When I came to Tuck I was very focused on wanting to work on a first-year project with a sustainable apparel company. I sourced a project with Allbirds, a sustainable shoe company, and our project focused on building an ambassador program. For the project, I worked with a diverse group of Tuck classmates with both U.S. and international backgrounds and a wide range of prior experience from the military to consumer insights. The group was incredible and provided Allbirds with what they called “their best project yet.”

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? When I was finishing my undergrad, I wanted to work at either The Coca-Cola Company or Unilever on their sustainability team as I felt they could make the biggest positive impact on society if they decided to embed sustainability in their business. I had the opportunity to go to The Coca-Cola Company on their Global Sustainability team and was selected as 1 of 12 to develop a strategic plan and millennial engagement strategy that helped shape future policies in employee benefits, technology, and mentoring. This opportunity was an incredible experience for a 23-year old to be working with the Operating Committee and CEO of a Fortune 100 company.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? That is such a tough question! I feel like I have a favorite every term. My recent favorite was Professor Paul Argenti who teaches Corporate Communications. Professor Argenti has an incredible background and an amazing presence in the classroom. I can’t imagine what it would be like to hold the attention of 75 MBA students for 90 minutes and with Professor Argenti that time flew by every class.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? During my first year, Tuck was selected to attend the World Government Summit in Dubai, a global platform dedicated to shaping the future of governments worldwide. Each year, the summit sets the agenda for the next generation of governments, focusing on how they can harness innovation and technology to solve universal challenges facing humanity. I was selected to attend the summit as a Tuck Delegate, which was an unbelievable opportunity to meet leaders from across the world and build relationships with my classmates in the Middle East.

Why did you choose this business school? When I was looking at different MBA programs, I was focused on the community, network, and opportunity to travel internationally within my program. At Tuck, we have something called the Global Insights Expedition (GIX), where you spend 10 days with your classmates abroad. Through GIX, I was able to travel to Vietnam with 35 other Tuckies and 2 professors to learn about the global economy and understand the culture. We met with representatives of companies and government in both former North Vietnam and former South Vietnam to get their perspective of the “American War” as they call it, as well as the culture and the business opportunities that have arisen since the war. It was such a unique experience that I knew I chose the right business program.

What is your best advice to an applicant hoping to get into your school’s MBA program? Go and visit. When I first started thinking about different business schools, I visited all of the different programs I was interested in. When I visited Tuck, I immediately knew it was the program where I wanted to go. Being able to articulate why you have such a connection with a school is so important, and I couldn’t imagine going to another program after I had visited Tuck.

What is the biggest myth about your school? When people speak about Tuck, they almost always mention the community. The Tuck community proved to be not only as good as everyone said it was…but better. The administration is incredibly supportive of students and their interests. The students are collaborative and close (20% of my upcoming wedding is Tuckies!) and every single Tuck alum I have reached out to for coffee, lunch, or a meeting has taken the call.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? I feel incredibly fortunate for my entire experience. If I were to change one thing, it would be to stress less about grades. Coming from a Liberal Arts background, I had never taken an Accounting, Economics, or Finance course. In the first semester I was slammed with coursework and worried about grades constantly. Looking back, I would have appreciated the journey of learning and not been as stressed about my final grades.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? This is such a tough question as there are so many classmates that I admire. The first that comes to mind is Kevin Yuan. Kevin and I spent the summer together working at Nike, he on their Global Sustainability team and me on their Social and Community Impact team. At Tuck, Kevin is known as a renaissance man – he is a National Geographic photographer, has become an SME in Sustainability and is the type of friend who will pick you up at the airport when you land for your internship with Blue Star donuts and cold brew.

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? My mom. Ever since I was 9 years old, my mom has been my best friend. She grew up in rural Montana, went on to work in finance in Colorado, and started a company with my dad. She always encouraged me to pursue an MBA as it was something that would benefit me no matter where I went professionally or personally.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? I would love to run for public office, and to run a large publicly-traded company.

In one sentence, how would you like your peers to remember you? I would like them to remember me as a kind, authentic, compassionate person who thought outside of the box of a traditional MBA student and lived her life with constant positivity. 

Hobbies?

• Anything outdoors – hiking, fly fishing, walking
• Fitness classes – Rumble, Barry’s, 305 Fitness, etc… if there is a new workout I’ll try it!
• Travel junkie
• Great book fanatic – I was a Great Books major at Notre Dame and love everything from Plato to Aristotle

What made Elizabeth such an invaluable member of the Class of 2020?

“At Tuck, our mission is to develop “wise, decisive leaders who better the world through business.” Elizabeth Davis truly embodies what this looks like in action – pushing herself and others to bring the best of business in addressing some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges today, notably including climate change, gender parity, and economic inequality.

Recognizing that business, as usual, is no longer sufficient given the scope of these challenges, Elizabeth demonstrated unflinching courage, commitment, and creativity in finding innovative ways to achieve greater impact through the power of business. Her steadfast focus and self-starter initiative was clear from the start. In fact, she was the first student in her class to put time on my calendar – before first-year classes had even started (!) – to begin exploring the most effective ways to maximize her time at Tuck, intentionally seeking (and often creating) opportunities to develop new skills, incubate new ideas, and push beyond her comfort zone, defining a new form of sustainable business leadership along the way.

Elizabeth’s track record of engagement at Tuck – and beyond – speaks for itself. Whether it was representing Tuck at the UN Climate Conference in Madrid, Spain or at TedWomen, for example, or partnering with UAE government officials at the World Government Summit in Dubai, working on sustainability issues at Nike, or leading seminars with our center’s fellows on issues related to gender and now working with female founders in the VC space, Elizabeth has an amazing ability to mobilize people and resources around common objectives and bold ideas. She often finds a path forward that others have not yet seen, illuminating this path with energizing optimism grounded with confident humility and pragmatic tenacity. Elizabeth has a very bright future – I can’t wait to see her continue to shine.”

John McKinley
Executive Director
Center for Business, Government & Society

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