Tawanda Thomas Tawanda Thomas is a commercial lender, former entrepreneur, and real estate investment coach with more than 30 years of experience across real estate law, finance, and sales. As Vice President and Commercial Lending Officer at The Harbor Bank of Maryland, she helps business owners and investors access the capital needed to acquire, develop, or grow their real estate portfolios and businesses—bringing capital and coaching to communities often left out of the conversation.

I define my current role in the industry as a help mate. Many are not ready or fearful of not being ready to qualify for a loan. I believe I am here to help them get ready or show them how they are already ready.

A proud Baltimore native with degrees in Paralegal Studies (BCCC), Business Administration (University of Baltimore), and a Master’s in Real Estate Development (Johns Hopkins University), Tawanda’s career has moved fluidly between banking and business ownership. She not only launched and ran her own top-producing real estate sales team for 13 years—mentoring women and young professionals along the way, she also found a commercial real estate coaching practice, equipping women with the tools to own income-producing property and rewrite their financial futures.

Most recently, she made a powerful decision to pivot back into commercial finance. Not out of necessity, but purpose.“This is where I’m needed now,” she said. That clarity of calling is what defines her work today: using finance as a tool for empowerment—particularly for women of color and young families, two communities she prioritizes with unshakable devotion.

Tawanda describes herself as a “help mate” in the lending world—someone who shows clients they’re ready for capital, even when they don’t believe it yet. And she does so with a quiet confidence rooted in lived experience: Having had a young family herself, navigating the dual paths of motherhood and career-building, and learning to stand tall in her own voice. “It’s okay to be a quiet Alpha,” she says. “No need to hide, assimilate, or diminish your light.”

Tawanda’s journey is proof that reinvention is not retreat—it’s strategy. And when done in service of others, it’s legacy-building.