About Tanea
About Tanea
After performing in her first play at age 8, Tanea fell in love with the stage and thought she would pursue a career in acting. It turns out God had other plans. After becoming pregnant with her first child at the age of 19, Tanea entered her first “hallway”. That space of uncertainty where she simply could not afford to reside.
With a new baby depending on her she quickly learned to embody the term “keep on stepping, no matter what”. As her infant son slept nearby she began to record this declaration in her journal daily,
"This is not my reality."
One year later she paired a blue and yellow hand me down manual typewriter with her fierce determination to not just survive but to thrive and embarked on a career in corporate America that lasted for over 20 years before becoming an entrepreneur.
After the birth of her 2nd child in 2007 and a little soul searching Tanea followed her passion for paper and launched She’s Got Papers, a lifestyle stationery company. Started as a side hustle, Tanea quickly found success, garnering press and making her debut at the National Stationery show where she once walked the aisle as an awestruck spectator. By 2016 Tanea left her job in financial services to run She’s Got Papers full time.
In 2018 life came at her full force when a health crisis hit her family. In the darkness of the 2020 global pandemic, she ended her long term relationship. In 2021 she stepped away from She’s Got Papers to return to finance. In 2024 Tanea became a Certified Life Coach and committed to helping other women to pivot and navigate life’s hallways in preparation for the next door to open.
Tanea has been featured in Essence, Ebony and on New York Live and GMA3. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her daughter and a collection of 80 journals that she affectionately calls, “the ladies”.
