Federal prison sentence didn’t stop Smith rebuilding iSuccess

T. Renee Smith, the CEO of iSuccess Consulting, was sentenced in 2007 to 46 months in federal prison after conspiring to use false financial information to obtain bank loans. Released in late 2010, she rebuilt her career through contract work starting in 2011

When T. Renee Smith first walked into her federal prison sentence in late 2007, she felt detached from her own life. The first night landed like an out-of-body experience—watching what was happening from the outside. sad for “that woman” and already knowing she would not be able to keep her old rhythm.

Smith was 51 and based in Atlanta when she spoke about the turning point. She said everything that could go wrong. did: in the space of a year she got married. became pregnant. and began serving her sentence. In 2005. she was charged with a felony. and by the time the case reached a 2007 sentence. she was four months pregnant.

Her son was born in April 2008 and, Smith said, spent the first 11 months with her in prison. After that, he went to live with her husband and her parents. She called that period psychologically challenging for all of them.

Smith was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison in 2007 for conspiring to use false financial information to obtain bank loans. She described the sentence as a stripping-away of everything she thought mattered—leading to an identity crisis because she no longer knew who she was outside her role as a business owner.

So she made a decision while inside: to treat incarceration as an opportunity to come out better. rebuild her life. and reinvent herself even with a felony on her record. When she was released in late 2010, she said the reality of the job market hit hard. She believed she likely wouldn’t be hired for corporate positions with a felony. and she realized she would have to start a business for her livelihood.

At first, she said she moved with tunnel vision—“let’s go”—but she later realized she had to reintegrate into her family and her life after years away. Rather than giving herself time to acclimatize and reinvent, she threw herself back into work.

In 2011. Smith began with contract work that didn’t require background checks. while setting up a consulting business on the side. She described the early years as slow, but she said the growth came through referrals. Over a few years, clients referred her to other clients, and the business expanded.

Today, Smith is CEO of iSuccess Consulting. She works as an AI transformation strategist, helping clients assess their AI readiness, develop implementation strategies, and make sure their workforce is prepared for those changes.

Her message for people trying to bounce back is built on three steps: “grieve,” “practice acceptance,” and shift your mindset.

Smith said the first thing anyone needs to do after a setback is grieve the life they thought they’d have. The second step is to replace the belief that life “should have” turned out a certain way with acceptance of how it is. She said she tries to ask what lesson she needed to learn and how she could grow from it.

For Smith, the third step is the decisive one. If she had looked at herself and thought, “I’m a convicted felon. Nobody’s going to hire me. I can’t build a business,” she said she would have become her own worst enemy. Instead. she shifted her mindset toward her current situation and asked what the break taught her and what she needed to build afterward.

She described her own story as an “absolute journey,” and she said she wouldn’t change anything about it because it made her the person she is today. “There’s no way that I’d be as resilient as I if I wasn’t incarcerated,” she said.

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