about

I started this blog with one sole mission:
To dismantle the leadership status quo by helping diverse leaders clarify their message and amplify their impact.

One article at a time and with a little help from human design.

Hey, Reader! I'm Tay

Here's the tl;dr about me:

• I'm a writer and a social impact researcher with 10 years of experience in behavioural and market research.
• I'm a trained DEI practitioner and trauma-informed researcher.
• You will never get me shut up about topics like decoloniality, ethics, diversity and power dynamics.
• You will also never get me to shut up about astrology and human design.
• Speaking of which: I'm a Leo Sun, Capricorn Moon, Capricorn Rising, and a 6/2 Self-Projected Projector, LAX Masks 2.
• I'm a certified Professional Life Coach and a Human Design specialist, trained on 100+ hours of source material.
• I've been featured in Yahoo!, Best Life magazine and as a speaker on several podcasts and webinars.
• I might look like I have my sh*t together but I'm just like you: an autistic, ADHD, chronically ill perfectionist and the mom of one sassy cat.

My story

When I was 12 years old, my family moved to the United Kingdom.

We lived in a pretty little suburban hamlet on the outskirts of Reading where all the houses looked the same, the streets were clean, the people were conservative and everyone minded their own business.

I was enrolled in an all-girls boarding school. It was here that I encountered the realities of my race, skin colour and Third World status for the first time.

On the very first day of school, a small blonde girl introduced herself to me and, fascinated by my accent, asked me where I was from. When I told her that I was from Trinidad and Tobago, she asked:

"Do you have planes there? You have an airport and roads and stuff like that?"

I remember feeling incredulous 🙃

We were standing in the halls of one of the most prestigious boarding schools in Britain, yet this girl was asking if there were roads in my country. Roads.

I sighed, smiled sweetly and replied: "No, we don't. I swam here."

It took her a second to realise I was joking 😅

During my time at this school...

• I experienced the school's reverend calling me and my family "undisciplined" because of where we came from. 
• I was sent to the headmistress for disagreeing with the account of the Middle Passage being taught by the GCSE curriculum and my white, male history teacher. 
• I was enrolled in sports teams despite having no interest in sports because I was “built for it”. 
• And I constantly had to grapple with the reality of being the only black person in every room I entered.

Becoming a researcher

When I think back, it was here too that my interest in decoloniality, prejudice and power dynamics was born.

That and the fact that I grew up in a highly academic and politically-conscious family that regularly engaged in lectures and debates about history, religion, geopolitics and socioeconomics for as long as I could remember.

There's just something about existing at the margins that makes you want to examine how the margins are created in the first place.

So, despite my mother's wishes that I pursue a reasonable, stable career as a dentist, in university, I left the science path behind.

I got my B.Sc. in Psychology and Gender and Development Studies and my M.Sc. in Development Statistics - a study path that would take me to Germany to dive deeper into behavioural economics and social statistics. 

Fascinated by the way people behave, communicate and lead, I spent 10 years listening to other people's stories of success and failure, oppression and privilege, marginalisation and mobility, abuse and violence, triumph and loss, crisis and breakthroughs.

And I was really f*cking good at it.

My career would find me speaking to survivors and perpetrators of abuse, politicians and policymakers, business owners and employees, high net worth individuals, parents, students, teachers and everyday citizens alike.

They would all speak to me openly and without reservation, often about things they'd never shared with another living soul. (Thank you Gate 13 😅)

But despite having a successful research career, I wasn’t happy. 

I was uncovering all of these life-changing insights but I wasn’t doing anything about it. My research would end up in the university library or a filing cabinet in a corporate office. So what was the point?

Surviving corporate trauma

At some point, I ended up working in an incredibly abusive and toxic work environment. Something I'm sure you're familiar with.

What on the surface looked like a respected market research firm, I quickly found out was a a white-owned company with no HR and a staff conspicuously made up of only young, dark-skinned women.

Here, managers shouting at staff, staff leaving meetings in tears, managers asking for work outside of working hours, and inappropriate and uncomfortable communications from leaders were the norm.

Here, I was worked to the bone in the midst of a health crisis. And I saw myself, my life, begin to waste away in service to a job that didn't care about me.

So I resigned.

Then, when I thought it was finally over, I was fired in the most unceremonious and embarrassing way.

It was one of the lowest points in my entire life.
It was also the best thing that ever happened to me.

It was one of the lowest points in my entire life. It was also the best thing that ever happened to me.

~ Tay Francis

Making the pivot

With my background in Psychology and behavioural research, I got certified as a Professional Life Coach.

I had fallen in love with Human Design back in 2019 and it helped me survive the challenges of that corporate workplace and my health crisis.

And I realised that I had an opportunity to help people in the way I always wanted.

The problem was, I began to see the same issues I saw in my corporate career.

I saw an overwhelmingly heteronormative, white, Global North industry with overwhelmingly underprivileged, marginalised, black and brown clientele and Global South staff.

I saw was an industry full of people flaunting their wealth and privilege while criticising and gaslighting those struggling to make ends meet for being unable to “invest in themselves”.

I saw programmes that promised to be “safe spaces” but were anything but.

And I hated what I saw.

Part of the solution

Then in 2023, the tide began to change.

More and more people started waking up to the unethical practices in the online business industry and started talking about them. 

Yet the same thing that nagged me as a researcher resurfaced - we were talking a lot about it but what do we do about it? How do we change it? What’s the practical solution?

Today, this is exactly what I’m dedicated to doing. 

I want to help coaches create real safe spaces for their clients. Leaders create safe workplaces for their employees. Teachers, facilitators and course creators create safe learning environments for their students.

I want to help diverse coaches and leaders like you own your voice, take up space and make a real difference.

If you’d like to do the same, I’d love for you to join me 👇

Proven strategies + your unique energetics = Unparalleled impact 🚀

Whether it's a sales page, your social media, a speech, or a team meeting...If you want to make an impact, you need to be brave enough to say it with your chest.

You need to own your sh*t, do the work and show up for the people you serve.But most of all you need to show up for yourself, as yourself.

And the only way to do that is to know who you are, what you want to say and how you need to say it.

So how do you do that? Well, with a little help from Human Design.

Let's work together