Eagles Take Flight - Kendria Taylor and Tingkai Guan

05/22/2023
Tingkai Guan and Kendria Taylor

UNT alumna, Kendria Taylor, provides an internship for B.A.S. Learning Technologies student, Tingkai Guan, after meeting at UNT Alumni Association’s event, Dinner with a Dozen.

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, it’s no surprise that Kendria Taylor didn’t waste any time in turning her side hustle into a company of her own. After finishing her Bachelor of Applied Arts and Science in the College of Health and Public Service (2003), attaining her Master’s in Family Studies, and gaining some work experience, Kendria became President and Principal Consultant at TG8 Solutions Insight, LLC. She started this company about 5 years ago, adding 4 consultants along the way, to work with organizations that are looking to communicate better with their employees. As she explains, “Our goal at TG8 is to ask three important questions: How can we better communicate, how can we increase collaboration, and how can we navigate conflict?” Through the exploration of these questions, she helps companies better their workplace environment for all employees and helps both employers and employees understand what each member of the organization brings to the table. In addition to her work as a mediator and consultant, Kendria is passionate about promoting empathy and compassion in the workplace. She has developed industry-leading, proprietary assessment tools that measure communication styles, learning styles, and levels of empathy for individual team members and their effects on teams. Kendria also offers one-on-one team mediation services, including “Empathy Circles.” Learn more about TG8 and Kendria: Who We Are — TG8 Solutions Insight

Kendria is an active member of the UNT Alumni Association. She is the VP of scholarships and fundraising for the Black Alumni Network. When I asked about the rewards of being active in the organization, it became clear that Kendria’s vision for her company in using the empathy design model extends to her volunteer service. “I was a first-generation student who had an experience that made me feel like I didn’t belong in college when I first started at a different university. It took a while for me to return and dedicate myself to my studies after that experience. However, UNT made me feel welcome and the professors in the College of Health and Public Service changed the way I thought professors should look at their students. They let me know that I belonged, and I mattered.” Now Kendria wants to give back to current students to help them feel the same way. 

And true to her word, she managed to find another way to do just that. Kendria attended UNT Alumni Association’s “Dinner with a Dozen,” where she met and talked with students to provide mentorship and advice. What she didn’t know the night of the dinner was that she would end up providing an internship to someone she met there, Tingkai Guan.  After hearing about his struggles with finding a spring internship, she made some calls to her clients seeking an opportunity for him. Each place she implored was happy to provide an internship for Tingkai but not until summer (after graduation). That’s when she decided to take a chance and offer a paid internship through her own small company. I spoke with Tingkai about this internship. He said, “Kendria wanted me to build an online course from scratch, which required a market analysis, data analytics, learning styles assessment, testing, and reporting of the findings. This was a great chance to apply the skills I had been learning in my coursework in the Department of Learning Technologies along with the knowledge I had acquired doing the undergraduate certificate in Data Analytics. In fact, after working on this project, I was able to explain the experience in my interview with Envoy Air, the company that has made me a permanent job offer.” Tingkai will be doing a lot of the same tasks through analyzing the baggage data and making reports on recommendations to the company. 

Due to Tingkai’s diligence in his internship hunt, networking activities, and Kendria’s generous offer to give him a chance to shine, Tingkai will start his new job now that he has graduated May 2023 with his Bachelor of Applied Science in Learning Technologies and Data Analytics Certificate. Tingkai would like to give some advice to current students: “Keep all the doors open because you never know which one you will be able to walk through. Be prepared and start your internship hunt as early as possible. Join activities and events to network with helpful people, like alumni.” This advice seems to have served him well and earned him the prestigious Golden Eagle Award and the honor of being named a Great Grad. Additionally, Kendria has hired him as a part-time consultant to keep working on the project they started together.  To read more about Tingkai Guan: Great Grads: Spring 2023