Mana Tahaie (she/her) is the Managing Partner for Taproot Earth. She fosters the organization’s operational, financial, and interpersonal health, leading staff development, planning and budgeting, technology, and systems. Mana joined Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy in 2021 to build and launch Taproot, bringing two decades’ experience in organizing and organizational development.
Before Taproot, Mana advised social impact organizations on equity strategy, providing executive coaching, facilitation, research and design, and other consulting services. She wrote Our Generational Vision for Justice & Liberation for Terence Crutcher Foundation, analyzing the root causes and impacts of mass incarceration and economic privation on poor and BIPOC Oklahomans. Mana also designed and led Changing the Status Quo, an intersectional gender justice collective organizing women and femmes against institutional sexism. Prior to becoming a consultant, Mana worked at YWCA Tulsa; first as the inaugural Racial Justice Director, later as Mission Impact Director, and finally as interim Immigrant & Refugee Services Director. Before joining YWCA Tulsa, Mana served as the first Deputy Director of LGBTQ+ community center Oklahomans for Equality.
Mana is a first-generation Iranian-American and a lifelong red state progressive. Living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband Nick and their dogs Lily and Dora, she dreams of a just transition to a punishment-free world, where bodily autonomy and self-determination are human rights guaranteed to all.
