Influential Woman · Nonprofit
Takyra Fulton
Chief Executive Officer & Founder, CALM Nonprofit
Detroit, MI
Her Story
About Takyra
I am the founder and executive director of Calm, a nonprofit organization I created to address the critical need for mental health awareness and access to culturally affirming care in my community. What really led me to create this organization is honestly just the need for awareness of access to care. It's not necessarily that in the community that I serve there isn't any care for mental wellness, there's just a lack of awareness or culturally affirming resources. Mental health facilities can feel very cold and not welcoming, so we want to bridge that gap between feeling like this space is available to you and it actually being available to you. I also serve as Director of Clinical Research, where I manage cross-functional teams working on drug development, specifically collecting safety and efficacy data on new first-in-human cancer drugs. That experience with bringing teams together to achieve a goal equipped me to now manage cross-functional teams for a different deliverable, which is creating access through our therapy program that gives women access to free therapy. My main area of expertise is building teams, programs, and systems that create change and impact, whether the team is an oncology team or a mental health team. I think of myself as a visionary and a builder. I can build pretty much anything with the right team, and I can equip the team with what they need to accomplish the goal. My operations and project management experience is my biggest skill set because I'm managing budget, timelines, deliverables, and assessing risk and impact to achieve a goal within a certain time frame. I carry that experience with me through every area of my life.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Takyra
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my grandmother. She was the matriarch of our family and lived a life of service. Nothing really shook her, she could just be there for us in a way that was so dependable. She was always someone you could count on. I recall early in my career, my car had broken down, and I was trying to figure out how to manage everything. She drove me to work every day and drove my daughter to school without even asking any questions or blinking. I only hope to exemplify the level of love and service that she gave to our family. One thing I realized from her service is that only we benefited from it. Had she known what I know and created programs and pathways, she could have impacted millions with the right resources and funding, because that's just the kind of heart that she has; the heart of service, and I have that same heart. I work really, really hard because I want to be someone who changes someone else's life the same way that she changed mine, but in a way that impact my community.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is that nothing is unattainable. For me, that means if you feel deserving of something that you want, you put in the work, you continue to grow your skills, and you kind of break it apart. Nothing is unattainable with the right mindset and the right work ethic. That doesn't mean necessarily working hard, it means working smart. For example, if I want to be a director, what does that mean? What does it mean to be a director? It means to be a great leader, it means to be a teacher, it means to be a mentor, it means to be a resource. In your journey, how do you become a resource? How do you become a teacher? It's not just the work, it's what you do personally. You need to be grounded, and you need to be composed. A lot of my job is, once everything is going wrong, I need to be the person staying calm in the midst of chaos. So what kind of things can I do personally to stay calm? Mindfulness, yoga, meditation - these kinds of things make me a better leader. That advice also included asking why. Why do you want to be a director? Why do you want to found a business? Nothing is unattainable, as long as you know your why and you're willing to put in the work to do it.
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