Tyra Townsend

Tyra Townsend Chief operating officer, Neighborhood Resilience Project

Tyra Townsend is the chief operating officer at the Neighborhood Resilience Project. In this role, she manages all the day-to-day strategic and tactical operations of the organization. She also establishes and manages external partnerships with universities, health affiliates, governmental entities, and profit and nonprofit businesses to ensure quality programming and growth.

Tyra is an adjunct professor at Waynesburg University. She teaches extensive business, leadership development, strategic planning, management policy, conflict resolution, infrastructure and performance management courses in their MBA and undergraduate business programs. In addition, she is also a housing mediator providing eviction mediation services in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, a certified consultant in behavioral analysis and a Carnegie Mellon University FINE Outreach for Earth Time Fellow visualizing structural barriers to equity.

Tyra worked nine years in the corporate sector at U.S. Steel Corporation and subsidiaries of Merrill Lynch and Prudential Insurance Companies. She also spent two years in local government, 16 years in higher education, 16 years as an entrepreneurial consultant and executive coach, eight years as a non-profit executive and 12 years in nonprofit management. She has served as a board member on four nonprofit boards. Her primary passions and causes are community and economic development, cross-cultural communication and reconciliation, social justice, and youth and adult training and development.

Education

• B.A. administration of justice, University of Pittsburgh
• MLLS leadership studies, Duquesne University