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mom

Hi, I'm Taneshia Nash Laird and I am the founder and CEO of Legacy Business Advisors, an economic development and social enterprises consultancy serving clients throughout the country. I've been professionally engaged in community revitalization work for over fifteen years. My work has included cultivating hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity in the public and private sectors by helping grow small businesses; executing sports, entertainment and destination marketing; the promotion of affordable and mixed-income housing; and the development of commercial real estate. Creating economic opportunities where people live and the maintaining of reliable transportation infrastructure is of particular interest of mine.

People who know me well know that I'm keen on the economic growth of women and communities of color.

I currently provide television and radio commentary on public policy as it relates to women and/or local economic development. I'm also passionate about the arts, history and the environment. I'm a trustee with Art Pride NJ Foundation, for the Advocates for NJ History, and I am a Senior Fellow in the Eastern Regional Network of the Environmental Leadership Program.

I'm an active member in a number of local and national chambers of commerce organizations and in 2014 I was appointed Mercer County, NJ regional director with the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce which took me to the White House for policy briefings and additional opportunities to engage with US Cabinet level staff.

My public service includes an appointment to the NJ Urban Enterprises Zone Authority where I have been a board member since 2009. And recently in Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka asked me to serve on his city's Economic and Social Responsibility Commission (it is pending City Council approval).

I have offices in Newark, NJ as well as in Trenton, NJ where I was the city's director of economic development and acting director of housing production and later served as the executive director of the Trenton Downtown Association. But again, my team and I serve clients throughout the country.

Born and reared in New York, I am currently raising my daughters as a single mother in Princeton, NJ as I was widowed in 2013.