Tami Lakey

Experience & background

Tami Lakey is a coach, ministry practitioner, community mobilizer, and co-founder of So Shine Foundation. With more than 30 years of experience serving the local church, she has spent her ministry helping develop both local and global initiatives, engaging in short-term international missions, and equipping churches and communities to move from vision to meaningful, sustainable action.

As a founder of So Shine Foundation, Tami has led the development of community-based ministries and social enterprises designed to strengthen neighborhoods, create belonging, and mobilize people toward the needs right in front of them. Her work has often lived at the intersection of ministry, entrepreneurship, and community development, giving her extensive experience in co-vocational ministry, entrepreneurial ministry development, church mobilization, and whole-community engagement.

Tami was part of the original Exponential NEXT Ventures Shark Tank in Austin in 2021 and was more recently invited to participate in the first-ever Exponential Church Innovation Trade Show. Those experiences further shaped her passion for helping church leaders imagine innovative, locally rooted expressions of mission and ministry.

In this next season, Tami is drawing on decades of hands-on leadership to coach pastors, ministry leaders, church planters, and missional practitioners as they discern what God is calling them to build, change, release, or step into next. She especially enjoys helping leaders connect vision with practical next steps, recognize the opportunities already present in their communities, and develop ministries that are both faithful and sustainable.

Tami’s coaching around grief, loss, and transition is also shaped by personal experience, including the unexpected loss of her infant grandson and, two months later, her daughter. Those losses have deepened her compassion for people navigating grief, change, and what comes next.

Tami is married to Chris, is the mother of six, and grandmother of four. When she isn’t coaching or dreaming about what could be possible in a community, she can usually be found cultivating her backyard garden oasis or heading down the road in the Airstream with her husband.