About Tamela Rich

I’m a voracious reader and wrote Nancy Drew-type mysteries on the junior high school bus.

My first job was filing for my father’s insurance business while still in grade school.  Since insurance was our “family business,”  my bachelor’s degree was a BSBA in Finance with a concentration in Insurance and Risk Management.

Early Career

I spent a decade in sales management and business development roles with financial services firms Allstate Insurance (where I opened an agency), The Hartford, and  First Union (now Wells Fargo-Wachovia).  Sales is a great boot camp for learning persuasive communication techniques.

I enjoyed a diverse freelance career when my children were preschoolers: a stringer for The Charlotte Observer, a commentator for local NPR affiliate WFAE and a producer for Carolina Business Review (a PBS affiliate production).

Gaining Momentum

I went to business school at Duke in my late 30’s where my teammates always turned to me for the final writeup on cases involving finance, operations, marketing, economics, accounting and management/leadership. The seeds of my business ghostwriting career were planted there.

After B-school I went the entrepreneurial/small business route including a stint on the pre-IPO management team of LendingTree; a privately held software and consulting firm; and my own industrial/environmental cleaning company.

I raised capital, forged business partnerships, filed a trademark, priced products and services, sued deadbeats, and led a company through an orderly shut down. Small business owners and professionals in private practice, I’ve felt your pleasures and your pains.

Full Circle

In a moment of mid-life clarity I decided to harvest my rich business background and combine it with my love for language as a business ghostwriter, emphasizing whole-brain communications. My clients tell  me “You say it for me better than I could say it for myself,” and “You make me sound like me, only better.”

I write long form in articles for Charlotte Magazine and blog a couple of times a week right here. 

Life has come full circle as I’m at work on a mystery novel based on my experiences in environmental cleaning.  The heroine’s a modern Nancy Drew named Kate Barstow.

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