Tanya Meessmann is the proud owner of two businesses. The first one is called Girl Shaped Flames and it’s a social enterprise focused on developing confidence in high school-aged girls. This was Tanya’s first foray into entrepreneurship. The second business is a sister company and a not for profit called Unique You and Tanya is the CEO and a board member of Unique You. Unique You is a service where careers and guidance officers can peruse a database of women in male-dominated industries with their female teen students. They can book a 30-minute phone call with these women and are able to connect with strong female role models. Tanya’s purpose has always been to do a good job all the time and she has always found herself guiding and mentoring young girls in believing in themselves, developing confidence and a drive to do well. Her first job was in advertising and her passion has always been creativity and filmmaking.
Tanya switched from advertising and spent 12 years in the film industry producing films. Her epiphany moment came to her whilst walking her dog in a dog park. She had a moment of peacefulness and found herself thinking about helping young girls who are struggling with confidence and self-belief and decided that she wanted to inspire them. Tanya now runs camps twice a year called “Camp Courage.” This idea came to her after asking herself, “How do I connect hundreds of girls with hundreds of women?” At Camp Courage, these girls are taken out of their environment and given the freedom, space and advice to overcome fears. Tanya grew up in a small town in Central QLD and was brought up by her single mother. She also has a younger sister.
After school, Tanya attended Bond University to study IT, through a scholarship, but after three weeks, switched degrees to Communications. One quirky fact about Tanya is that she learnt how to DJ at the age of nine and she was lucky enough to travel the world and skipped year five.
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