Tanya was born and brought up in Adelaide, Australia where she gained qualifications in Paediatric Nursing, Midwifery & worked as a Nurse Teacher. She spent most of her adult life in the UK, where she met her husband and raised two children. They came to New Zealand in 2008 and brought along their dog Hugo. As he got older Hugo suffered from some of the conditions that tend to affect dogs as they age. Tanya looked for alternatives to the copious amounts of drugs that he was prescribed and discovered the healing properties of hemp. Tanya met the founder of
Hemp Seed Holdings Limited, Donald Mcintosh, in February 2020 and became a Director of the company in November 2020.