Today we’d like to introduce you to Tara Malcomb.
Hi Tara , so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I spent over a decade in California healthcare administration — home health, hospice, urgent care, physician groups. I eventually became President of Business Operations at a home health agency here in Imperial Valley, and in about eighteen months we built it into the top agency in the county.
Then everything fell apart — not because of anything happening inside the walls I ran, but because our CFO was arrested as part of Operation Skip Trace, a $267 million Medi-Cal fraud investigation centered on hospice fraud in the Los Angeles area. It had nothing to do with our agency — different region, different service line, completely separate business — but he was our CFO, and that connection alone was enough to bring everything down overnight.
That was the moment everything shifted. I realized I had spent all those years building other people’s dreams, and my future had still ended up in someone else’s hands — completely outside my control. I decided it was time to build my own.
Around that same time, I had already started sharing my life online — the corporate girlie building a career, juggling motherhood to twin girls, figuring it all out in real time. What started as content became a real community, and somewhere along the way I stopped being just the person documenting the journey and became a creator and influencer in my own right, under my own name. That platform ended up being the thing that carried me through the transition — it gave me a voice and an audience before I even knew what I was building next.
That’s where NOVA came from. A nova is a star that suddenly burns brilliant — bright enough to be seen across the sky, even though it’s been building toward that moment quietly the whole time. That’s exactly how this chapter has felt. Everything I lived through wasn’t the end of my story — it was the pressure that made this moment possible. I’m not ready to share exactly what NOVA is yet, but I can tell you it’s a creative brand, and it’s entirely mine.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not even close — and I wouldn’t want it to be, honestly, because the hard parts are what shaped everything I’m building now.
Losing the agency was the biggest one. I had put everything into building it — the late nights, the relationships, the systems — and then watched it disappear because of something completely outside my control. That kind of loss doesn’t just cost you a job, it costs you a sense of security you thought you’d earned. I had to rebuild my identity from the ground up, because so much of it had been wrapped up in a title and a company that no longer existed.
What hurt the most wasn’t losing the title — it was watching the people affected by it. I had built an incredible team, people I genuinely cared about, and I had to watch their livelihoods disrupted by something none of us had any control over. Our patients were affected too, people who depended on us, and that weighed on me in a way that’s hard to put into words. That part still stays with me more than anything else.
It got uglier before it got better. People connected to the investigation went after my character online, hiding behind fake identities on platforms with zero accountability, and it crossed into personal threats at points. That’s a different kind of hard — you can rebuild a business, but having your name and safety attacked by people hiding in the shadows takes a different toll entirely.
Building a platform as a creator came with its own learning curve — putting yourself out there publicly, especially after a very public professional setback, means opening yourself up to judgment from people who only know a fraction of your story. I had to get comfortable being visible again, on my own terms this time.
And now, building NOVA has its own version of hard — construction delays, permitting, vendor timelines, the reality that building something physical takes so much longer than building it in your head. There’s also a very real fear that comes with it: investing everything you have into a concept and hoping it works, with no guarantee.
But nothing is stronger than my own hope and faith that all of this happened for a reason — to bring me here. It’s a different kind of struggle than what I went through before, but it still tests the same muscle: trusting that I can handle whatever comes, because this time it’s mine to handle.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a content creator and social media strategist with a specialty that blends storytelling, brand-building, and business. I’ve spent years managing social media for businesses, especially in the healthcare space, where I learned how to translate complex, highly regulated industries into content that actually connects with people.
On my own platform, I create UGC-style content that’s part personal, part practical — I share my outfits, my favorite “corporate girlie” finds, and the day-to-day of building a business and a brand at the same time. What I’m known for is storytelling. I don’t just post content, I build narratives — and I’m fortunate that being on camera comes naturally to me, so I can bring a story to life in a way that feels real rather than produced.
What I’m most proud of is turning my own life — the wins and the setbacks — into a platform that resonates with people going through their own reinvention. I’m not just documenting a journey; I’m building a body of work that spans content creation, brand strategy, and now a creative business of my own, NOVA, which is a natural extension of everything I’ve learned about building things that connect with people.
What sets me apart is that I’ve lived both sides of this: I understand the operational and strategic side of business at an executive level, and I understand how to build an authentic personal brand from the ground up. Most creators have one or the other — I bring both.”
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
People are always surprised by how creative I actually am. Spending over a decade in the medical field, you don’t exactly get to flex that side of your brain — it’s protocols, compliance, operations. But outside of work, I’ve always been drawn to creating: decorating spaces, cooking in a way that’s more about intuition than a recipe, styling something until it feels just right. I think that creative instinct was always there, just waiting for a place to go. Looking back, it makes sense that it eventually led me to build something like NOVA — a brand that’s entirely creative at its core. It wasn’t a departure from who I am; it was actually a return to it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taramalcomb/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tara.powell.353
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-malcomb-068846183/
- Other: https://canva.link/lnpvt8op73nhmt9
