it became apparent to me that something needed to be done to address wealth in the united states
something needed to be done to help people broadly understand the importance of building wealth but
certainly in diverse communities and the stock market game which is a part of what sifma
foundation does offers us a great opportunity to help the next generation to understand how to
handle and ultimately manage wealth i'm very personally committed to financial literacy
because financial literacy to me is the path to financial inclusion for everyone in the world my
whole career is in financial services but i didn't come from a place of understanding what financial
services even were i didn't know anything about cds stock bonds any kinds of investments and yet
as i grew throughout my career what i realized is it was really critical to understand
financial instruments investments all those sorts of things my passion for financial education came
from my own personal experience i knew saving for retirement was important but i didn't know how
important saving early can be i didn't learn about the rule of 72 and compounding interest
until i was 25 years old and my mind was blown i believe very firmly in the power of what happens
when women have better access to capital not just in the immediate sense and in terms of
getting the money but also knowing what to do with it and being able to plan for their future
higher levels of financial literacy are a great thing for society as a whole right it
just improves everyone's life i would be the first in my family to have the opportunity to do this
and i know i'm one of millions of kids who want this opportunity like we can do it
i feel so fortunate to work in this industry and witness the power of financial planning
and what it can mean for individuals and their families we are reshaping conversations around
money with younger generations and helping them gain financial resilience
financial literacy and building wealth is is important to the sustainability of families
what i saw through my own family is the financial freedom that it gave my family
as my father built wealth for us building wealth especially starting early on provides a freedom
to be able to enjoy and be there for your family and i saw the powerful impacts of that
and now i'm the extension of that for people of my generation i think we're going to live a long time
we're going to work a long time but we also really want to enjoy those years at the end of our lives
to spend with our family and friends you need to take care of yourself the rest of your life
and the way you do that is to be really smart about how to invest money save money and build
for your futures our purpose is to make the lives of millions of people better through supporting
financial education financial literacy and the financial services industry and so anything that i
can do to help continue to move that needle that's what i'm here to do and to me there's no greater
calling having the opportunity to equip students as young as fourth grade with the tools they need
to begin making smarter financial decisions a lot earlier is everything to me because i don't think
that we're just teaching a fourth grader or a fifth grader we are changing the world it is super
rewarding to hear from stock market game teachers students former participants to hear how our
programs have impacted them in such a positive way a teacher that just participated this past fall
and said i had students who played the stock market game parlay that into investing in the
actual stock market and doing very well thank you for offering such a great real world experience
another teacher wrote us our town is a town of 346 people there are only 13 students in the senior
class graduating in may i would love to set them up for a successful financial future by exposing
them to all of the possibilities in the financial realm they have been raised on farms and in a
town that doesn't even have a grocery store or a restaurant i'm excited to have them learn through
the stock market game that they can use their money to rise out of poverty getting messages like
these never gets old it makes us realize at the sifma foundation that we have the best jobs around
so thanks for listening and happy financial literacy month to everybody