Tracey Morant Adams

What is Community Development?

Our role is specific to that community platform, ensuring that we are engaged in the community, that our employees are engaged in the community, that we're listening to understand the needs of the community and how we can offer greater service to those throughout all of the neighborhoods and wonderful urban, rural areas that we serve.

What Makes Your Local Community Special?

Well, what makes it special not just about Birmingham, but Alabama. I'm a native Alabamian, a product of rural Alabama. I grew up in Talladega County, which is just an hour away from Birmingham, and as a girl, I can remember my mom, who is a retired school teacher, my dad, he's deceased now, but he was minister. I can remember us driving to Birmingham for activities, to do things, to do some shopping, and I think that as a kid and recognizing that Alabama is a special place, it's a beautiful place, but central to the success of Alabama is Birmingham, which is the economic center for the state, and so when I had an opportunity after business school to decide where I wanted to plant my roots, I decided I wanted to go back home. Now, I didn't want to go quite all the way back to rural Talladega County, but Birmingham was a good spot, and it has been very rewarding for me and my family. There's some great things to do here, wonderful people, and I think Birmingham has learned so much from its rather challenged past to embrace a more inclusive society and to build a strong, inclusive culture, and you're seeing that. We're very fortunate to have incredible organizations and corporations that give back.It's a very philanthropic community, and that's my passion around economic and community development, and core to that is giving back, and so I live in a place where there are a lot of other folk like me, and I think that's why it's made it exciting, folk who truly want to make it better, and they want to make Birmingham better, and we are just silly enough to believe that if it can be better, then certainly the country can because so much as it pertains to impact from a civil rights and civil liberties really were birthed out of Birmingham

What is the Nest?

The Nest is designed to help that female entrepreneur make smart decisions around managing her business.It's an education program, helping them to understand everything from the financial structure of the business to how to market it more successfully, but central to it is helping the female entrepreneur understand how to keep her personal wealth separate from that of her business. It's important to me that our small business community is strong. The small business community really is central to the economic fabric in our country. People oftentimes don't think that more people work for small businesses than they do for corporations, like you and I. And so I am very keen on wanting to help small businesses mature, small business owners be successful. We created The Nest really with a focus on the female entrepreneur. Many of the small businesses in our country and particularly in the Renasant footprint are owned by women, and so oftentimes they are using their personal wealth, their personal dollars, their retirement dollars, to found or be the underlings for their small business...

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