Meet Tisha Peters

We were lucky to catch up with Tisha Peters recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tisha, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I got my work ethic from my mother, Annie. She came from humble beginnings, leaving her home in Grenada and moving to Trinidad when she was about 18. She is the strongest woman I know who worked very hard to provide for her family on her own. My mother was a disciplinarian and raised us to have strong faith in God and to work hard. A lot of who I am today is because of the values instilled in me from an early age including being on time, working hard, pursuing educational goals and my entrepreneurial spirit. My mom worked two jobs to make ends meet and she always said “don’t hang your hat where your hand can’t reach,” a saying I try to keep in the forefront of my mind up to today.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a human resources professional with over 10 years of experience in a Generalist capacity. I started this career path later in life and received my degree at age 40 from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus (with a brief stint attending the former Brescia University in London, Ontario for about one year). When I returned to Barbados in 2014, I was trying to get into the field of Human Resources which proved difficult. I started working as an Office Manager and was helping a friend with her resume and she insisted that I start my own business and that’s how Career Coach now Career Coach International Inc. was founded. The business focused on helping students write better resumes and develop their interview skills as I saw this as a need for improvement. It is still very much a skill that is needed as I still see many resumes being submitted with personal information on them.

Over the years the business evolved and I added Business & Dining Etiquette services with the same friend who encouraged me to start the business over lunch one day! Before I landed a job in HR I worked in Sales and Business Development where I excelled but my heart remained in People management. It was by chance I was speaking with another friend and where he worked had an opening for an Assistant HR Manager, I interviewed for the role and spoke with the hiring manager for over two hours and landed the role. Since then I have worked in hospitality, finance and higher education.

The highlight of my career was the creation of a mentorship program for aspiring HR professionals which is very specific and niche. We had our first cohort in 2024 and this year we launched Cohort #2 on January 6 with 17 mentees from Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago and St. Lucia. Our mentors are from similar countries and each week we engage in practical exercises to give the mentees a taste of HR best practices. This gives me a sense of joy as I wanted to find a meaningful way to give back to my community as I also had mentors who helped me and continue to help me on my journey. From the first cohort, we were able to achieve success for eight of the mentees and they found jobs in retail, pharmaceutical, hospitality, non-profit and medicine. One mentee launched a journal and that was very exciting to watch her growth.

During the mentorship program, we also partnered with a company in Trinidad to add an HRM simulation for additional practical exposure and this year we have a blend of mentees and professionals participating with about 20 registered in that component of the program.

This year, I am looking forward to deepening my Mentorship journey and growing a community of HR professionals who will be change agents. As the current Vice President of the Human Resources Management Association of Barbados (HRMAB), a voluntary organization and I am also excited about enriching my role there and the projects we have coming up. I have been a member for over 10 years and being involved in the Association allowed me to work with an amazing network of human resources professionals who I also gained a lot of expertise from. In 2024 we were able to plan and hold our annual conference, the first one since the pandemic which was a resounding success, dubbed the Human Tech Expo: Bridging the Gap between HR and AI. I am fascinated by the things AI can do and although nervous about what it can do, I enjoy integrating it into my business.

This year I also crossed one thing off my vision board as a guest teacher on Introduction to Human Resources, a 10-week program which I am really enjoying. For Career Coach, I would like to solidify the brand as a community for aspiring Human Resources professionals who want to enter the field by providing practical experience for the role. In my vision, when employers receive a resume and see the mentorship program they know it’s based on a solid foundation and that the participants have the bridge between theory and practical and can be an asset to their organization.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Three qualities, skills or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey are:
1. Paying it forward
2. Collaborating/Networking
3. Authenticity

Advice for people early in their journey would be to always show up as who you are authentically and remember to network. Networking has been the cornerstone of my career, especially for finding roles that I would not have otherwise been able to find. HR is a special but demanding field so remember your why when entering the field and remember that while you are caring for your employees and achieving the goals of the company, as the head of Human Resources, you are also an employee so also find someone to take care of you, whether through EAP or an HR Coach/mentor.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

My biggest area of growth in the past 12 months has probably been my ability to be more aware of the emotions of the people I serve or what we coin as developing emotional intelligence. Whether it is by taking a few minutes to breathe before answering or providing sound advice. During the mentorship program, I realized that I would be interacting with people who would essentially be seeing me as a leader and I was nervous because I was scared to take on that role. Still, my friend and mentor, Julie Turney, said to me “do it afraid” and boy was I afraid. I also became cognizant to the emotions of people because everyone was dealing with something and so I learned to listen more and talk less (well relatively).

Contact Info:

• Instagram: careercoachbb
• Linkedin: tishapeters

Image Credits

Terris Scott Photography
Tisha Peters