ABOUT US
We offer services for companies, groups, organizations, and individuals
About Taking Charge Consulting, LLC.
Taking Charge Consulting, FKA Phoenix Recruiting & Employment Services, LLC., is a minority and Woman-Owned professional
Waleisah Wilson is a small business coach, strategist, and justice-centered leader who supports entrepreneurs—especially women impacted by incarceration—in building sustainable, values-aligned businesses. Grounded in lived experience and community wisdom, she helps clients turn ideas into income while prioritizing healing, stability, and long-term economic freedom.
A key focus of Waleisah’s work is economic prosperity. She champions pathways that move beyond exclusionary employment systems, promoting entrepreneurship, workforce development, and financial empowerment so formerly incarcerated people can achieve independence and generational stability. She consistently elevates the leadership and brilliance of those most impacted, creating opportunities for returning citizens to see themselves as leaders, organizers, entrepreneurs and change-makers.
Waleisah also prioritizes safety, healing, and community connection, creating spaces where Black women and girls can heal from the harms of incarceration, reconnect with family, and feel protected and affirmed. Her trauma-informed, culturally grounded approach reflects a commitment to collective care and liberation.
Through her advocacy, organizing, and leadership, Waleisah continues to build pathways for justice, restoration, and opportunity—transforming not only individual lives, but the systems that shape reentry, re-integration and community well-being.
She is the founder of NewLife-Second Chance Outreach, Inc., a Georgia nonprofit (which she founded in 2012 after her release from prison), a 2025 YWCA Greater Atlanta's Georgia Women’s Policy Institute's (GWPI) Fellow, a 2022 Represent Justice Ambassador, where she created and produced her first short film “Working in Captivity: A Woman’s Quest to End Slavery in Georgia”, a documentary to support her and the GA chapter of All of Us or None’s #endslaveryinGA campaign to end prison slave labor in Georgia, a member of the 2022 cohort of the Women Transcending Collective Leadership Institute at the Center for Justice at Columbia University, a 2020 Soros Justice Fellow, a 2019 Southerners on New Ground’s the Lorde’s Werq Leadership Fellow, a 2017 JustleadershipUSA’s “Leading with Conviction” Fellow, and and a is member of Georgia’s HOAPE Coalition, a coalition composed of four Georgia based formerly incarcerated black woman led nonprofits that was founded in 2023 as a call to action in response to Georgia's felony voter disenfranchisement laws that suppresses the civic voices of Georgians on probation and parole. In July 2025, she was featured in Voyage ATL Magazine as one of Atlanta's Most Inspiring Stories (From Incarceration to Inspiration).
In July 2023, as a result of another Twitter rant she made due to being denied an SBA PPP loan in 2021 due to her felony, she was contacted by the SBA and Senator Cory Booker’s office to participate in a collaborative strategy coalition of other stakeholders to address the barriers to financial access to SBA loans for people with felony convictions despite them being qualified and successful entrepreneurs. Based on their feedback, in September 2024, the SBA invited public comment on a proposed rule that would help expand access to SBA loan programs for people with certain criminal history records. These proposed reforms would open up entrepreneurship opportunities to the one in three American adults with a prior criminal history record and build upon President Biden’s comprehensive Safer America Plan. After many meetings and feedback, the collaborative effort resulted in the SBA’s decision to change its prior policy that limited access to capital to otherwise qualified individuals with a prior criminal record. On May 1, 2024, the Biden-Harris Administration announced the SBA’s new rule to increase economic opportunity for returning citizens, making it easier for returning citizens to start and run a business, creating economic opportunity and reducing recidivism.
recruiting and employment services company offering services dedicated to the identification, evaluation, and recruitment of exceptional talent as well as facilitation of job readiness workshops offered to better prepare job seekers for the workplace. Regarding our client’s needs, we have developed a distinctive recruiting system which provides timely, cost effective solutions to critical human resource problems. The key to our success is a corporate philosophy and management style differing from our competitors in many significant areas, including recruiting from a diverse and qualified group of potential and qualified applicants, cultivating a culture that encourages collaboration, flexibility, and fairness. We offer the very best services in our field. We never settle for second best, and always have your satisfaction as our top priority. It’s who we are, and we are proud of it.
Who We Are
We love what we do and it shows. We know our industry and our clients like the back of our hands. There’s no challenge too big or too small, and we dedicate our utmost energy to every project we take on.
Strategies & Plans
Every customer is unique. That’s why we customize every one of our plans to fit your needs exactly. Whether it’s a small strategy or a comprehensive effort, we’ll sit down with you, listen to your requests, and prepare a customized plan.
