MEET TANA
It was not my fault. It was still mine to solve.
I have been rebuilt a few times. That sentence up there is the one that did most of the rebuilding, and I would like to tell you where it came from, because it did not come from a book. It came from a rough start and about thirty years of refusing to let it be the last word.
"Every pain has a purpose. Situations fail...but you are not the failure."
THE FULL STORY
Where all this actually comes from.
People assume I built this brand from theory. I built it from a life. Here is the shape of it.
THE FIRST THREE & A HALF YEARS
I was born into the New York City foster care system.
I stayed there until I was three and a half, and then I was reunited with my biological family. I do not remember any of it. What I remember is everything that came after, and what it does to a person to start life as somebody’s open case file.
There were hard years after that too. For a long time I carried them the way most of us do, which is to say quietly, and mostly as evidence that something was wrong with me.
Then one day it landed: none of that was my fault. And every bit of it was still mine to solve.
That is not a comfortable sentence. Nobody is coming to fix it, so you had better get up. But it is the most freeing thing I have ever understood, and everything I teach now runs straight back to it.
THIRTY YEARS
I spent three decades on the other side of the table.
Human resources. Ten of those years as the top HR executive for domestic and international organizations, rebuilding entire departments across talent, systems and operations. Which is a professional way of saying I was in the room when they decided who got hired, who got promoted, and whose name came up for the big assignment.
I watched brilliant people get passed over. Not because they were not good enough. Because when the moment came, nobody in that room could say what they were great at.
I also learned something less flattering. I was doing it to myself. I was the reliable one, the fixer, the one who never asked. I was, as it turns out, a very well qualified best kept secret.
AT THIRTY-SIX
I went back to school.
“Nobody gets to choose their beginning. Use your adversities as FUEL, not EXCUSES.”
Which sounds tidy written down and was not tidy at all. It did not look sensible from the outside, and I did it anyway. Then I kept going: an MBA in organizational psychology and development, an honorary doctorate in 2019, and years later a law degree, because I wanted to understand the rules that shape the workplace at the source.
Late is a story people tell you. It is not a fact about your life.
THEN I LEFT
The corner office, the six figures, the expense account.
All of it. I woke up one day and realized I had climbed all the way up a ladder I did not actually want to be on, and that if I stayed another five years I would be very successful at a life I did not choose.
So I walked. It was terrifying, the maths did not look friendly, and it remains the single best decision I have ever made. It is also why I will not let a client tell me a plan is impossible. I know exactly what impossible feels like on a Tuesday afternoon with a mortgage.
IN 2014
I opened my own doors.
I started the practice in 2014. Human resources and organizational development consulting is the technical name for it. Cultural engineering is closer to what it actually is. Companies call me when the org chart looks fine and something underneath it very much is not.
Then it grew, which I would love to tell you was the plan. The client list ended up holding McDonald’s, Spotify, NASA, the US Department of Health and Human Services and the City of Richmond, alongside a pile of startups and nonprofits nobody has heard of yet. Plenty of that work is systems and structure. A good deal of it is the quieter question of who gets seen, who gets developed and who gets promoted, which some people call diversity and inclusion and I mostly call paying attention. I have been at that particular question for over twenty years now.
Then I hired people, which is a completely different flavour of terrifying. Building a team means somebody else’s rent depends on you being right. We are certified as a woman and minority owned business, which involved paperwork nobody warns you about, and we are still standing.
I had spent thirty years making other people’s organizations work. I wanted to find out whether I could build one.
TODAY
I live and work in Kigali.
These days you will find me in Rwanda. I teach on the continent, I keynote across it, and I coach people who are trying to change something real in their countries and their companies. My mission line used to say one million women. I have since added: on every continent I can reach.
Thirty years ago I could not have told you this was where the road went. That is rather the point.
"Mediocrity is overcrowded. What do you want your legacy to be?"
WHAT THAT TAUGHT ME
Four things I will say to your face.
If we end up working together, you are going to hear all of these. Might as well know now.
It is not your fault, and it is still yours to solve.
Both halves of that are true at once, and most people only ever get told one of them. Blame is a dead end and so is waiting. The exit is the same door either way, and it opens from your side.
Comfort is the enemy of success and prosperity.
I have never once met somebody who grew while comfortable. Every good thing in my life sat on the far side of a decision that scared me first. Yours are probably over there too.
Use your adversities as fuel, not excuses.
Every pain has a purpose, though I promise you it will not feel like it while you are in it. Situations fail. You are not the failure. There is a very big difference and it took me years to learn it.
Everyone is a success story waiting to happen.
I believe that about you before I have met you, which is either the most useful thing about me or the most annoying, depending on the day. Mediocrity is overcrowded. Go on.
GIVING BACK
From Foster Care To Fabulous Foundation
I founded FFC2FF to put money and resources directly into the hands of foster parents caring for children from newborn to four years old.
That is the exact age I was in the system. This one is personal and I have never pretended otherwise.
Grants go out one per twelve month period, applications are reviewed within a week, and the whole thing runs on the belief that the people doing the hardest, least glamorous caring work should not have to do it out of their own pocket. Thirty percent of every live event ticket has gone straight to it.
FOR THE RECORD
The wall of frames.
I do not lead with this, but people ask, and a few of them mattered a great deal on days when I needed them to.
RECOGNITION
Forbes "Next 1000" honoree
Forbes Top Diversity and Inclusion Business Leader
National Diversity Council DEI Champion
HuffPost Top Female Expert to Follow
Los Angeles Awards Business Hall of Fame, inducted three years running
2022 NYC Big Book Award for Working While Black: A Woman's Guide To "Stop Being The Best Kept Secret(R)!!"
#1 Bestseller for Get Your Career Life In Order
CREDENTIALS
MBA, organizational psychology and development
Honorary Doctorate, 2019
JD, Juris Doctor, 2025
SHRM-SCP, GPHR and PHR certified
ICF approved executive performance coach
Visiting faculty, African School of Governance, Kigali
BY THE NUMBERS
30 years in human resources
2,000 plus speaking engagements
1,500 plus clients served
10,000 plus hours of coaching
Four books, one of them a number one bestseller
Clients including McDonald’s, Spotify, NASA and the City of Richmond
MORE TANA
If you would rather hear me than read me.
There is quite a lot of me out there. Here is where to find it, and what each one is good for.
MORE TANA
The Stop Being the Best Kept Secret® podcast.
Long form conversations with leaders across industries about building workplaces where people are actually seen. The back catalogue is on Apple Podcasts and Podbean and it is not going anywhere, so start wherever the guest interests you.
New episodes are on pause while I am teaching and building on the continent. When it comes back, the newsletter will know first.
IN THE PRESS
Where I turn up.
I write for the Forbes HR Council and get called on when somebody needs a straight answer about work, culture and who is really getting ahead.
Forbes
USA Today
NBC News
ABC News
CBS News
CNBC
HuffPost
Entrepreneur
Good Morning America
Black Enterprise
Inc.
GUEST APPEARANCES
Other people’s microphones.
I say yes to a lot of podcasts, especially the ones willing to go past the polished version. If you want the honest conversations about burnout, being overlooked and leaving corporate, they are usually in somebody else’s feed rather than mine.
ON THE PAGE
Four books, so far.
Working While Black is the one people know. Before it came Inside the Revolving Door, the number one bestseller Get Your Career Life in Order, and a little book of motivation I still get messages about.
SAY HELLO
You have read all this. Your turn.
Tell me what you are working on, what you are stuck behind, or just where in the world you are reading this from. I am genuinely nosy about that last one.