A Philadelphian since 1996, Tenley Bank serves clients around the country and close to home, focusing on the nonprofit and education sectors. Tenley has deep experience in arts and cultural organizations, foundations, and community-focused nonprofits.

As a Managing Associate, Tenley serves as a trusted partner and advisor for her clients, leading and managing search processes and cultivating thoughtful candidate pools to result in highly effective placements. She prides herself on providing high-touch, responsive client service and transparent, empathetic candidate care to identify and recruit interesting choices for every search. Tenley has developed a broad network of nonprofit leaders, including executive and administrative leaders, curators, educators, public historians, and development professionals, and has served clients including academic, independent, and municipal museums, research centers, botanical gardens and arboreta, foundations, and other cultural spaces. She is committed to advancing the missions of nonprofit organizations and institutions as they lead and amplify conversations central to our shared human experience.

Prior to joining Koya in January 2020, Tenley spent nine years in knowledge management at Korn Ferry, where she provided strategic, research-based guidance to the higher education practice across the global firm. In her earlier career she served as external relations director for Theatre Exile in Philadelphia, PA; managing editor for the Modernist Studies Association’s annual conference issues of the peer-reviewed academic journal Modernism/modernity; and in the mid-nineties, office manager for a start-up technology firm providing real-time virtual reality software libraries to clients including NASA for the International Space Station.

She moved to Philadelphia in 1996 to pursue a career in theater; in 2000 she embarked on a graduate degree in literature, researching and publishing on modernist women writers in the US South. A lifelong vocalist, she also sang with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia from 1997-2001; a highlight was performing several times with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Tenley’s ongoing passion for creative expression and inquiry informs her work every day.

Tenley received her BA in English from James Madison University and her MPhil in Literature from Drew University, where she completed course work and exams toward a PhD. She writes poetry and short fiction as time allows.

Education

BA, English
James Madison University

MPhil, Literature
Drew University

Course work/exams toward PhD, Literature in English
Drew University
(was graduate student association rep for program)