Driving America Forward with Aaron Kletzing
“One of the key ways we’re innovating on the Charter team is by focusing on drivers, because drivers are in many ways at the center of it all. They’re a big part of what makes the Zum experience special for students and families, and so one of the things we’re doing is focusing on creating more opportunities for them within Zum.”
Aaron Kletzing
VP of Charter
Zum
Raised in Chicago, Aaron Kletzing is a graduate of West Point and Harvard Business School. After serving as an Army officer and founding a venture-backed startup, he joined Amazon, where he worked in product, operations, and general management. During that time, he also helped lead Amazon Restaurants, the company’s early push into on-demand food delivery. Following four years in leadership roles at City Storage Systems, Kletzing joined Zum as VP Charter, where he focuses on deploying Zum’s vehicle fleets, drivers, and physical infrastructure during periods when they’re not in use for the company’s core home-to-school operations.
In your role at Zum, how do you think about innovation?
For me, innovation starts with the incredible advantage that Zum already has—a strong core business that works, of taking students to and from school. The fact that our home-to-school business works so well empowers the Charter team to be creative and innovate.
One of the key ways we’re innovating on the Charter team is by focusing on drivers, because drivers are in many ways at the center of it all. They’re a big part of what makes the Zum experience special for students and families, and so one of things we’re doing is focusing on creating more opportunities for them within Zum. By using the buses outside of school hours for instance, on weekends or during the summer and running trips for groups like the YMCA, marathons, or community events, we’re also helping drivers earn more while keeping them connected to Zum.
When we do that well, everyone wins. Drivers have steadier income, students see familiar faces behind the wheel, and schools get greater consistency. That’s really what innovation is about for us—finding simple, effective ways to make the system stronger for everyone involved.
From your perspective, at a company-wide level, how is Zum driving American innovation forward?
I think Zum is redefining what innovation looks like.
The student transportation industry hasn’t changed much in decades, but Zum is driving innovation forward by never accepting the status quo, and by always looking at difficult problems in a different and creative way.
It’s that new and different perspective that launched Zum in the first place, and it’s that spirit that’s still alive today—primarily in our people.
Of course, Zum brings best-in-class technology, transparency, and accountability to the table, which makes the daily school commute safer, more reliable, and more connected for families. But what really stands out to me, at Zum, is the people. There’s a genuine energy here—a drive to keep the promise we make, to offer the safest, most reliable student transportation around, while also always being inventive, and coming up with new and better ways to serve schools, parents, and students. Everyone cares deeply, not just about what we do, but how we do it, and that mindset keeps us pushing forward.
Looking ahead, Zum will continue to deliver on its core home-to-school business, while also applying what we’ve learned about the large-scale movement of goods to other sectors, which can benefit from our creative approach to innovation.
When you think of the future, what role do children/the next generation play, and how can we set them up for success?
I think children have an incredible way of seeing the world with curiosity and imagination. They approach problems with fresh eyes, unshaped by convention, and that perspective is where true innovation begins. The most important thing we can do for them is to create environments that nurture that curiosity—environments where asking “why” and “how” is encouraged, and where they feel supported in exploring new ideas.
We’re living in a time when entire industries are being rethought because of rapid advances in technology. Helping children stay curious and confident in understanding how the world works and how it can be creatively improved is what will ultimately prepare them to lead and shape the next wave of innovation.