Zoe Kaslow

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

“A naturalized Vermonter, I’m a scrappy, hardworking relationship builder who loves to bring people together.”

Hometown: Vergennes, VT (our adopted home of the last eight years!)

Fun fact about yourself: I have never eaten a hamburger in my life.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Middlebury College, Psychology

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Let’s Grow Kids, Associate Director Of Campaign Giving & Employer Engagement

Where did you intern during the summer of 2024? New Balance, Boston, MA

Where will you be working after graduation? I’m currently recruiting for chief of staff or brand manager roles at CPG and manufacturing firms in Vermont.

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

* I have been deeply involved in the Women in Business Conference as a co-chair for prospective students. I first attended as a participant in 2022, then supported as a first-year co-chair in 2023, and served as the lead project manager for the 2024 conference.

* I am also an Initiative on Workplace Inclusion Fellow, where I contribute to external workplace inclusion resources, including the IWI blog. I co-authored a post with Professor Julia Melin on supporting parents returning to the workplace.

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? I attended the Women in Business Conference (WIBCo) in October 2022 as a prospective student. It was my first night away from my then 5-month-old Kian, and I was nervous about what business school would mean me for me as a professional but also as a mom. The WIBCo co-chairs put together a beautiful conference that made me feel that Tuck could be a home for me and my family.

Since WIBCo played a pivotal role in my decision to attend Tuck, I dedicated my extracurricular efforts to creating that same transformative experience for other women. I was a WIBCo logistics co-chair in 2023 and 2024, and I am so proud of our work every year to deliver an incredible Tuck experience for women interested in Tuck. It’s bittersweet that next fall will be the first time in three years I won’t be at WIBCo!

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? Our primary objective at Let’s Grow Kids was to create a system for high-quality, affordable childcare for Vermont families and support early childhood educators in sustainable career pathways. I worked to secure financial support for our movement to meet our campaign goals by 2025. In my final months at Let’s Grow Kids, a crucial vote was taking place in Montpelier to determine the future of Vermont’s largest childcare investment bill.

When the final roll call came out 118-27 with quad-partisan support, the chamber erupted in applause, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the building. I was able to witness, live, the passing of bill to inject $120 million annually into the system to support Vermont families, children, and educators. I was so proud to be a small part of an incredible, record-setting movement that would make Vermont a better place for young families!

Why did you choose this business school? I wanted to go to a top business school with a strong core curriculum where I would be a part of an invaluable alumni network. Given my background in nonprofits, I wanted to ensure I had a strong foundation when entering the private sector. Additionally, Vermont has been our home for the last eight years, so I wanted to build my network in the region where we’d want to be long-term. Plus, you can’t beat the scenery of the Upper Valley!

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Professor Emily Blanchard sets the standard for teaching at a business school. A renowned scholar and practitioner, Professor Blanchard brought her experience abroad—and as a former Chief Economist at the State Department—to the classroom in Competition and Cooperation in the 21st Century Global Economy. She took deeply complex material and gave us a taste of how it might apply both on a firm level but also globally. She taught critical lessons about trade-offs, a concept that applies to every business decision. I was mesmerized every class!

What was your favorite course as an MBA? Leading Diverse Organizations with Professor Sonya Mishra was a highlight of my MBA career. In addition to being an excellent teacher, Professor Mishra gave us the tools to sharpen our critical thinking skills on topics such as discrimination and bias as well as how to navigate complex situations such as colleagues with conflicting values. She grounded every discussion in empirical research, equipping us with practical frameworks to navigate real-world challenges. I now have a toolkit to rely on when I’m leading a team in the future. Her command of the classroom was remarkable—across 16 sessions, I never once heard her say “um.” Truly a masterclass in pedagogy!

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? Tuck hosts Tuck Talks once a quarter, a storytelling event like the Moth, where students share personal stories. It’s typically the last week of the term, and Tuck Talks reminds us that everyone is a full person outside of their career at Tuck. I was one of five Tuck Talks speakers in fall 2024. I shared my story of navigating business school as a mother and the Tuck community helping me remember who I am as an individual in addition to being Kian’s mom. Speaking at Tuck Talks was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life—right up there with meeting my husband at Middlebury and becoming a mother.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? When I first started at Tuck, I was nervous to share my family with the Tuck community. I worried about how to bridge the gap between my reality—leaving at 5 p.m. every night to be with my family—and the experiences of classmates who didn’t share that responsibility.

As relationships turned from classmates into friends, the whole community has embraced my family. During my first year, I would bring my son to campus for Tuck Tails, and he would race through Stell Hell, making friends with everyone in the room. Once a week, I’d take Kian on the campus shuttle from graduate student housing in Sachem to campus to eat dinner in the Byrne Dining Hall. Everyone from the bus driver to the grill cooks would go out of their way to make Kian smile.

The Tuck community finds ways to say yes when you bring your full self, and I wish I had embraced sharing my family with the Tuck community even sooner!

What is the biggest myth about your school? We talk about this concept of “Tuck nice.” Tuckies are incredibly nice, but sometimes “nice” makes it difficult to have tough conversations. However, there’s also a movement toward “Tuck kind.” I can have conversations with people I disagree with about hard things, but we eat breakfast, we learn things about each other, and we do it again the next week.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? People come to Tuck and talk about the rural nature of the Upper Valley. I have to chuckle a bit—we have a J.Crew here! Having lived in even more remote parts of Vermont, I love that the Upper Valley strikes the perfect balance between nature and accessibility. We have stunning outdoor spaces and a best-in-class children’s museum, the Montshire Museum, for rainy Sunday mornings with my son along with Lou’s Restaurant and Bakery for early morning donuts!

What movie or television show best reflects the realities of business and what did you learn from it? I’d been a huge fan of Succession before business school – it was my go-to rewatch while I was on maternity leave. I love the family drama! Now that I’m in business school, I understand the business language and strategy aspects of the show. Succession is a masterclass in how even the best business strategies can be derailed by ego and personal ambition.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? AI was completely foreign to me before coming to Tuck, and in the last year, I have embraced the value of AI. At Tuck, I’ve been encouraged to integrate AI into my daily routine, knowing that fluency in AI will be essential in the future workplace. AI has been an invaluable tutor for my Optimization Modeling in Prescriptive Analytics and Operations coursework when I get stuck on a homework set, but AI also organizes my running training schedule, brainstorms fun activities to do with my son, and helps me plan my girl’s trip to Miami. Tuck offers courses and workshops on AI, and AI comes up nearly every day within that’s in the classroom or the dining hall.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? I’m lucky to be surrounded by so many incredible classmates at Tuck, and Ashley Waddell T’25 is one of my favorites. We met at the Women in Business Conference in 2022 as prospective students, and I have been so grateful for her friendship while at Tuck. Ashley is incredibly smart and an absolute powerhouse when it comes to Excel. But most importantly, Ashley is kind and patient with me (someone who hardly used Excel professionally before Tuck) as we work together on problem sets. Her sharp wit often has me in tears of laughter, and Ashley has really carved out a path at Tuck that’s entirely her own. I can’t wait to see what big ventures she’ll be leading—she’s one to watch!

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

1. Launch a wellness kit brand for new mothers – So often, my friends and I are sick because our little ones are sick, and there’s a real opportunity to create wellness kits tailored to new mothers, filled with nourishing, healing snacks designed to support them through postpartum recovery!

2. Work for an international brand – I’ve always loved to travel, and I’d love to immerse myself in different cultures and tackle business challenges on a global scale.

What made Zoe such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2025?

“It is my honor to recommend Zoe Kaslow. I first met Zoe three years ago when she was just starting on her MBA application journey. We had a phone call to talk about Tuck, and I was amazed to learn that she was studying for the GRE, doing her school research, and preparing her applications all while pregnant and on maternity leave! When I asked her how she possibly managed to do it all, she responded: “I’m really organized, and I know how to ask for help.”

Utilizing those skills during her time at Tuck, Zoe has been a pivotal leader in our community, working to advance the interests of women and working mothers through her involvement in the Women in Business Club and as a Fellow in the Tuck Initiative on Workplace Inclusion. As a co-chair for Tuck’s annual Women in Business Conference, Zoe managed logistics for the three-day recruiting event that brings close to 100 attendees to campus. Here, her organizational talents were on full display. Working with her on the conference, I quickly came to realize that if you need to get something done…give it to Zoe!

Zoe is one of the warmest people I know. She genuinely cares for others and will bend over backwards to support them. Her classmates have benefited immensely from her perspective. Zoe brought with her to Tuck a passion for social impact, unique pre-MBA work in local government and nonprofit management in rural Vermont, and the experience of being a working mother. She has generously shared her insights, successes and vulnerabilities with the Tuck community, speaking about the challenges of navigating motherhood and school during last year’s Tuck Talks. Her impact is noted by classmates. In honor of Women’s History Month, Tuck had a bulletin board where the community could recognize women who have inspired them. Along with students’ mothers, mentors and historical figures, Zoe’s name is prominently on that board.

Zoe is a model of how to balance family with work/school. Her approach isn’t to choose one over the other, but rather she blends the two. Her son and husband frequently join in school events like Tuck Tails and weeknight dinners in Byrne, so not only is Zoe an outstanding member of the Tuck community, but Kian and Nial are too!”

Patricia Harrison
Director of Admissions, Evaluation and Yield

DON’T MISS: MBAS TO WATCH: CLASS OF 2025

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