Photo of Tara Kenchen

Tara C. Kenchen

Senior Consultant, Business Ownership Initiative, Economic Opportunities Program

Tara is the president & CEO of UF Strategies and a senior consultant with the Business Ownership Initiative.

Tara Kenchen has over 25 years of experience in the nonprofit, affordable housing, lending, and small business sectors. She is the founder of UF Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm supporting the growth and development of organizations through executive leadership coaching and support, strategic visioning and planning, organizational development, and racial equity coaching. UF Strategies also provides interim executive services.

Prior to dedicating her time to UF Strategies, she most recently served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the North Carolina Community Development Initiative. Tara also led the Initiative’s lending arm, Initiative Capital, a certified CDFI that provides strategic lending and investment for community economic developers and businesses in low-resource areas of the state.

Prior to joining the Initiative, she worked at the Durham-based CDFI Self Help as Assistant General Counsel and Servicing and Loss Mitigation Manager, managing Self-Help’s secondary market servicing relationships with lenders across the United States and monitoring a $1.2 billion mortgage portfolio for delinquent loan management and resolution.