Thank You to Our 2024 Keynote Speakers!
Whether you attended #AFCPE2024 and want to relive the impact of these keynote sessions or couldn’t attend but want to dive into each speaker’s insights, you have options for accessing each keynote session’s content.
Dr. Michael Thomas
Dr. Michael Thomas Michael G. Thomas Jr., Ph.D., is an Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) and a lecturer at the University of Georgia. His research focuses on financial empathy and self-compassion, data visualization’s effects on financial behavior, and the connection between brain function and money. Dr. Thomas’s philosophy on how to effectively interact with money can be summed up in his Ted Talk: Financial Empathy: Understanding the Story Beneath the Numbers. Utilizing financial empathy as a process for active listening and the creation of client-focused financial recommendations are reflected in two financial literacy and capability programs he helped co-create: Money Dawgs and Discovering Money Solutions. Dr. Thomas is also the founder of Modom Solutions – a virtual financial coaching service he has been providing since 2015. He will soon be an author as he expects to release his forthcoming book, Black Financial Culture: Building Wealth from the Inside Out, in 2023.
Wendy De La Rosa
Wendy De La Rosa is an Assistant Professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She focuses on using behavioral science to improve consumers’ financial well-being. She is interested in how people think about their resources and how these thoughts influence their saving, spending, and budgeting behaviors.
Her award-winning research has been published in the Journal for Consumer Research and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNBC, Forbes, Scientific American, NPR, PBS Newshour, and TechCrunch, among others.
De La Rosa is also the co-creator and host of TED’s Your Money and Your Mind series, a Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance honoree, and a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow. Her TED Talks have been viewed over seven million times. She serves on the boards of Code for America and Propel.
Prior to joining Wharton, Wendy received her PhD from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and helped start Google’s first behavioral economics unit. She was also a private equity investor at Goldman Sachs.
Syble Solomon
Syble Solomon was awarded the AFCPE 2023 Distinguished Fellow for her pioneering work to help financial professionals and individuals understand how our emotions influence our financial behaviors. She is an author, speaker, the creator of Money Habitudes©, and the co-creator of The Good Credit Game. Her work is grounded in research on how financial behavior is influenced not just by knowledge and skills, but also by personal experience, emotions, and underlying psychological factors. She is currently working with financial institutions and professionals to raise awareness of how to apply existing regulations, technologies and simple strategies to work more effectively in aiding survivors of abuse.
Robert Mascio
Robert Mascio has been with FINRA for over 18 years and is Director of Investor Education Outreach. In this capacity, Mr. Mascio cultivates and manages FINRA Investor Education Foundation programs and partnerships related to investor protection and the prevention of financial fraud and exploitation. He also facilitates FINRA’s Investor Issues Committee. Prior to this role, Mr. Mascio held a variety of management and investigative positions within FINRA, including managing FINRA’s Vulnerable Adults and Seniors Team. This team was responsible for operating the FINRA Securities Helpline for Seniors, as well as conducting specialized reviews and investigations of senior specific concerns, including allegations of fraud, abuse and exploitation of vulnerable adults. He has in-depth experience with both member supervision and market regulation investigations and initiatives within FINRA. Additionally, he serves on the advisory board to the Cybercrime Support Network and participates on Multi-Disciplinary Teams and taskforces related to senior financial exploitation. Mr. Mascio obtained his MBA from Florida State University, an undergraduate degree from Salisbury University, and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist.
John Moses
John Moses is Deputy Director in the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA), where he works on investor outreach and education. He previously worked as Managing Executive in the Office of the Chairman and began his SEC service in as Deputy Director in the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. John’s private sector experience includes international work in the real estate and hotel industries, and he is a US Navy veteran. John earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Stanford University and his MBA at Harvard Business School. He lives in Washington, D.C.
JUSTmove
JUSTmove (David Scherer and Joe Davis) are artists and educators who have over 30 years of shared experience between them in helping individuals and organizations create a more just and equitable world. They are both national performing artists, Qualified Administrators of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and are co-creators of JUSTmove: Antiracism Education through the Arts. Their work has been featured on BET, VH1, and MPR, to name a few. Find out more about them at www.justmoveculture.com.
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