Tahesha L. Way serves as New Jersey’s 3rd Lieutenant Governor. She was appointed to the position by Governor Phil Murphy on September 8, 2023.
A lifelong public servant, Lieutenant Governor Way has devoted her entire career to improving the lives of her fellow New Jerseyans. Over the past two decades, she has served at numerous levels of local and state government.
As Lieutenant Governor, Ms. Way brings her extensive experience to bear on addressing the greatest challenges facing New Jerseyans — from making life more affordable, to protecting fundamental freedoms—like access to reproductive health care and equality under the law — to maintaining New Jersey’s reputation as the best and safest state to raise a family.
In addition to her role as Lieutenant Governor, Ms. Way also serves as New Jersey’s 34th Secretary of State — a position she has held since the beginning of the Murphy Administration.
As Secretary of State, Ms. Way leads one of the nation’s oldest constitutional offices and directs a department with a diverse portfolio. In her capacity as New Jersey’s top election official, she has overseen the state Division of Elections and its work in securing our democracy and ensuring broad, fair access to the right to vote. Lieutenant Governor Way also chaired New Jersey’s Complete Count Commission, a 27 member non-partisan commission established to achieve a complete count in the 2020 US Census. In addition to the critical work protecting what Lieutenant Governor Way calls the “fraternal twins of democracy,” she also oversees the state government offices supporting New Jersey’s vibrant arts, culture, history, and business communities. Under her leadership, the state’s tourism economy has generated record-high revenues.
Following her 2022-2023 service as the first Black person and first Secretary from New Jersey to lead the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) as President, Lieutenant Governor Way continues to serve on the NASS Executive Board as Immediate Past President.
Prior to joining the Murphy Administration, Lieutenant Governor Way was an Administrative Law Judge for the State of New Jersey. In 2006, Lieutenant Governor Way was elected to the Passaic County Board of Chosen Freeholders and served as the Freeholder Director in 2009. She served as Special Counsel for the Passaic County Board of Social Services overseeing all agency litigation. She also served as a Council Member for the New Jersey Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council.
She is the former President of the Women Empowered Democratic Organization of Passaic County, an organization dedicated to empowering Democratic women by increasing their participation with the goal of achieving greater equality in the political process. Lieutenant Governor Way also previously served on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a leading national think tank geared towards advancing dialogue and policy for improving women’s lives and their families.
Lieutenant Governor Way is a graduate of Brown University, where she served as Vice President of the collegiate chapter of the NAACP, President of the Iota Alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. taught religious education, and was a radio announcer for WBRU-FM. She holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law at Charlottesville, where she clerked for the Virginia Legal Aid Society and the United Steelworkers of America.
Lieutenant Governor Way lives in Wayne, New Jersey with her husband Charles and their four children Fallon, Farrah, Faythe, and Fiona. She was raised in the Bronx by her late parents, Robert and Rosa Wright, who also devoted their careers to public service as employees with the New York City Transit Authority.
Lieutenant Governor Way has been a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, Garden State Bar Association, National Association of Women Judges, Association of Black Women Lawyers, Passaic County Bar Association, and the New Jersey Women’s Lawyers Association.
As Chief Community Development Officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), Tai is responsible for leading the NJEDA’s communications and enhanced engagement strategy. This includes strengthening ties with policy-makers at the federal, state, and local level as they look to advance strategies, research and data that will help drive equitable and inclusive economic development policies and programs, with a specific focus on innovating and generating greater social impact.
Tai joined the NJEDA in February 2019. Immediately prior to that, she was the Deputy Chief Policy Advisor to Governor Murphy and led New Jersey’s Federal Opportunity Zone initiative. She previously served as Chief Policy Advisor to Mayor Ras Baraka, where she provided policy analysis and project management across municipal agencies, with a focus on public safety, community engagement, philanthropy, and government innovation. Tai also had key roles in both Mayor Baraka’s campaign and transition teams.
Tai began her political career as a Senior Aide to Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), where she was responsible for managing numerous issues, including economic development, jobs/employment, education, banking and urban affairs. After working for Senator Lautenberg, Tai served as the Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Orange, New Jersey.
A Newark resident, Tai earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Urban Planning from The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and a Master’s Degree in urban planning from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.
Faith Taylor is the Global Sustainability & ESG Officer for Kyndryl, an IT infrastructure services
company with 240 data centers in over 60 countries and thousands of global customers. She is
responsible for building and overseeing their sustainability and ESG programs to meet their goals and strategic priorities. In their first 18 months, they announced their goal to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 aligned with the Science Based Target initiative and achieved Silver Certification from EcoVadis for their ESG performance placing them in the top 25%.
Before joining Kyndryl, Faith was the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) leader for Tesla.
She worked with their board, senior leadership, and investors to develop their strategies and
policies. She was also a professor at Montclair State University (MSU) creating courses in ESG,
and sustainable innovation and was a founding member of their first global human trafficking
Center.
During her 15-year tenure at Wyndham Worldwide, she developed and built the company’s
Environmental Social Governance program from the ground up and it became the hospitality
industry’s Dow Jones Sustainability World Leader, one of the Most Ethical Company in the World by Ethisphere and one of Newsweek’s Greenest Companies in the World. Wyndham Worldwide, was in over 120 countries with 100,000 hotels, timeshares, and rental exchange units. Earlier in her career, Faith served as an innovation and new business development leader as well as General Manager running global businesses generating over $600 million in revenues in the consumer-packaged goods cosmetic industry.
She is currently a Board of Director for CMC Energy Services. A private company founded in
1977 and one of the largest woman run energy efficiency company in the U.S. She is President
of the Women’s New Jersey Performing Art Center board where they have raised over $55 million dollars for arts education and community development in the last 25 years. In 2022 and 2023, she was listed as one of the “Top 10 Global Hyperscale Data Centre Sustainability leaders” by Data Centre Magazine as well as one of the “Top 10 Women in Sustainability Leadership in the US” by Business Chief UK and the top 16 globally by Sustainability Magazine. New York City and State Magazine named her as one of the Top 100 Responsible Leaders, and ROI-New Jersey listed her as a ROI Influencers: Power List. She has been a featured speaker and panelist with the Economist, Fortune Magazine, Salesforce, Microsoft, ANC Market Edge, Business World, World Travel and Tourism Council and numerous organizations across the globe. She is a graduate of Stanford University and has an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.