Francisca Carpentier

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

“A curious learner who firmly believes that we change the world with our day-to-day actions.”

Hometown: Santiago, Chile

Fun Fact About Yourself: I am probably among very few women arriving at their MBA experience pregnant! My husband is a fellow Tuckie, and the school was very supportive with planning how to approach this academic year. We couldn’t be more excited. Many classmates have already volunteered to babysit!

Undergraduate School and Major: Bachelor of Business Administration, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and Master of Science in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Associate at SummaPartners, a boutique firm founded by experienced consultants to join the worlds of management consulting and private equity.

What word best describes the Tuck MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far and why? Seekers. Tuck students are open to change and learning; students come here to question themselves and be questioned, to have an authentic transformational experience. I am also impressed by how humble successful Tuck alumni are, transmitting that same will to keep learning and challenging themselves.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I wanted a small school, a place where I would get to know my classmates and professors and truly connect. Before enrolling, every Tuckie I spoke with would always reflect on how transformative their two years at Tuck were and how Hanover was a special place to make human connections and life decisions. That’s what I was looking for in my MBA experience.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Dartmouth Tuck? Everything is exciting, but I don’t think TuckGO can be topped. The idea of traveling the world with a group of classmates and a professor to learn about the most relevant topics in our global economy is an experience I am sure no one could forget.

What excites you the most about coming to live in Hanover? What is the one activity you can’t wait to do? It is living in a place far from the noise and rhythm of the city. I’ve always lived in big cities, and I love it, but doing my MBA in a small place where I could focus on the experience resonated with me.

The one activity I can’t wait to do is skiing. I need to go to the Dartmouth Skiway at least once to say I did it!

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My first project as an associate was to reduce a company’s size, given the risk profile of some of its operations. It was the biggest company in its industry in the region, so the project’s impact was huge. It was a multi-variable problem, where we had to work on several scenarios and consider multiple effects in a short time. We built a cohesive team with the client and finally came up with a well-thought-out solution. We accompanied the company through implementation and managed to reduce over 40% of accidents in a year, positively impacting the company’s results. In the beginning, we truly believed it wasn’t possible, and I will never forget an experienced partner telling me this was the most fun and challenging project he had worked on.

How did COVID-19 change your perspective on your career and your life in general? I think working on challenging projects without having day-to-day team interactions had an impact on me. I realized a huge part of why I enjoyed my job so much was the great team I was surrounded by and how those small breaks and jokes throughout the day truly made a difference. It changed my career because I now know how important it is for me to work with a cohesive team with whom I can have fun and learn from. It’s more about the people than the role, and that was a great life lesson.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? After four years working alongside great leaders and mentors, I was more aware than ever of the dreams I had as a future leader and the gaps I needed to close to become that leader. After my MBA, I hope to join the strategic team of a large tech firm. I enjoyed consulting in tech and would like to keep growing on strategic roles in that industry because I genuinely believe those companies are changing the world.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Darden

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA program? Talk with Tuckies! They are the most open community I’ve known, and you will never meet anybody more willing to talk about Tuck, Dartmouth, and Hanover than alumni: they jump at the opportunity and truly enjoy it. So go through Linkedin. Find a Tuckie you can relate to because of your experience, what you want to do after your MBA, place of birth, or whatever reason and write; I always got an answer!

DON’T MISS: MEET DARTMOUTH TUCK’S MBA CLASS OF 2023