Alexandra Tyson and Felicia Jones Taylor left their stable jobs in education to start a consulting firm.
Siyana Partners Consulting
Leaving my job to start my own business really came down to family changes. I had a decent salary, benefits, and job flexibility in a role serving children and families, but I could no longer work a traditional job due to the demands.I had a kid, and then I had another kid, and my husband was gone a lot. He's an airline pilot. If I wanted to stay in the workforce, entrepreneurship felt like the only option.My sorority sister, Alexandra Tyson — we both pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated at the University of Maryland, College Park — came over to visit and check on me after a pregnancy loss.During that wellness check, she told me about an RFP she saw for a popular education company looking for international teachers. She asked me if I wanted to team up and try to nail the proposal.We didn't get the job, but we recognized we had synergy.After my partner, Alex, was a classroom teacher in the US and abroad for 20 years and an instructional coach at an international school in DC, she felt she had amassed enough skills and knowledge to be an entrepreneur.That had always been a goal of hers — to run her own business. It was instilled in her as a family value. She has Jamaican heritage, and her family groomed her to start a business.
