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[Prefer to listen? You can find a podcast version of this article here: E1: The Money Pep Talk Every Woman Needs To Hear]

The gender wage gap is a trope as old as time: women earn about 85¢ for every $1 men earn (Pew Research, 2024). It’s a simple fact we’ve known for as long as I can remember. Women are also underrepresented in leadership, holding roughly 34% of S&P 500 board seats, and only about 11% serve as CEOs in the 2025 Fortune 500. It’s unfortunate, but these trends are slowly changing. The glass ceiling is being cracked by a new woman every single day.

Driven by longer life expectancies, rising female entrepreneurship, and inheritances from spouses and parents, women are poised to control nearly two-thirds of all U.S. wealth by 2030. This is amazing, exciting, and yes, a little terrifying. Why scary? Because women haven’t been given the tools they need to succeed with this newfound ownership of wealth. 

Consider the following facts:

• Women score 13 percentage points lower than men on investing literacy questions (TIAA Institute, 2022)
• Only 17 states in the U.S. require personal finance education to graduate high school, many students miss early exposure altogether. (Council for Economic Education, 2024)
• Among women of color, the knowledge gap is even wider, compounded by less access to financial services and generational wealth. (Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap Report)
• Only 26% of women feel confident about choosing investments vs. 46% of men (Fidelity Investments 2021)
• Women are more likely to avoid financial risk and delay investing because they believe they need to learn “everything” before starting. (BNY 2022)

So yes, I’m thrilled that women are poised to take control of a share of wealth they’ve always deserved, but how do we make sure we’re ready for this moment? I don’t have a single perfect answer. Without an organized system of financial education, it falls to the individual to learn. In today’s world of daily apocalyptic headlines, a hundred different economists claiming to see the future, and a jargon-filled financial ecosystem, how is anyone supposed to cut through the noise?

Enter me, hello! I recognized the lack of financial literacy among my peers early on, and I felt it myself. As a finance major in college, I expected to learn the basics that would guide me in the real world. Spoiler: that was apparently too much to ask of my (very expensive) finance degree. Instead of learning about retirement accounts, I learned 15 ways to value a company, most of which I couldn’t recite now if I tried. Instead of learning how to file my taxes, I learned how hedge fund managers run options trades. Instead of learning the power of compound interest, I learned how foreign exchange rates are calculated. Interesting? Sure. Useful for everyday financial independence? Not so much.

If this was my experience as a finance major, I can’t imagine how my best friends studying public health or criminology are faring. Why isn’t anyone talking about this?

I feel grateful and privileged to hold what I consider very precious knowledge, and I want to share it with young professionals before it’s too late. In the world we live in, inflation, access to healthcare and Social Security, and increased longevity all make retirement feel a million years away. The longer we wait to educate our youth, the harder it will be for them to succeed.

My hope, with this podcast (and the accompanying blog) and in my career, is to create a judgment-free community where access to financial education is attainable, simple, and fun. I hope you’ll follow along as I teach the money lessons we missed somewhere between algebra and adulthood.