She was also General Manager of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft, Counsel to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a White House Fellow with Vice President Al Gore, and the collaborator on the bestselling book Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes and The Wall Street Journal column of the same name.
She attended the Baldwin School, where she was president of student government and played varsity field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse.
[3] From 1991 to 1993, Zalesne served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable J. William Ditter, Jr., an appointee of President Richard Nixon.
[7] In 2020, in her personal capacity, Zalesne helped write and gather co-signers for an Open Letter to America's Working Women, published in Business Insider, in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
[10] With the organization's other leaders, Zalesne was featured in David Bornstein's 2007 book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.
[11] Zalesne has since co-authored two white papers with College Summit founder J.B. Schramm, "The Promise of Proficiency: How College Proficiency Information Can Help High Schools Drive Student Success"[12] and "Seizing the Measurement Moment: Why Now is the Time for States to Help High Schools Get the Measurement Data They Need and Want.
"[16] In 2006 and 2007, Zalesne collaborated with Mark Penn on the bestselling book Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes.
[20] Zalesne spoke about the book on many national radio and television programs, including MSNBC's The Tucker Carlson Show.
She also serves on the board of Heart of a Nation, a nonprofit that teaches change-making to young American, Israeli, and Palestinian leaders.