Finance
Let’s Make
Beautiful
Anne B. Johnston is the Founder & Managing Director of Created, a boutique wealth advisory. As a writer, speaker, and musical storyteller, she is on a mission to help people clarify their vision of freedom and fulfillment so they can focus their resources on what's really important to them.
Speaking engagements for:
Women’s Groups
Trusted Advisors
Founders & Leaders
Values-driven organizations
Overwhelming, confusing, boring.
That’s how many people feel when asked about their finances.
Which is a real problem, because The Great Wealth Transfer is upon us.
Trillions of dollars are changing hands in the U.S. as older generations pass on their assets to younger ones.
Basically, boomers are passing substantial amounts of money to millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z. Notably, a large portion of this is expected to shift into the hands of women.
However, traditional financial education has often failed to effectively engage people, in particular -- women and younger generations -- if they received any financial education at all!
Here’s what I’m hearing:
Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z are not interested or excited about engaging with “traditional” approaches to financial education.
Boomers are concerned that the next generation is not prepared to manage the funds or businesses that will be passed down to them.
Even smart, well-educated individuals find themselves behaving like financial ostriches, with their heads in the sand.
The current approach to financial education is not working.
What if instead the world of finance was clear, approachable, and beautiful?
Speaking Engagements on Financial Empowerment
I offer interactive programs to groups as small as 5 and as large as 500, including:
How to Make Finance Beautiful
Planting Your Legacy
Rewriting Your Money Story
All of my programs incorporate creative tools like games, stories, and even live music!
TEDx: How to make finance beautiful
Presented at TEDxAlexanderPark 2024
Hi there, I’m Anne.
Growing up in Georgia, my father read me poetry and played me rock and roll. I loved philosophy, psychology, language. Finance wasn’t on my radar.
Then in college I signed up for a marketing internship, but when I started, my role shifted to finance, and suddenly I was immersed in the world of numbers.
I watched entrepreneurs walk in with ideas they were passionate about, and then the banker would walk them through the financial strategy to bring their dreams to life.
That was when I realized that finance can be part of something beautiful.
And so right out of school, I joined a wealth management firm.
I was there for 12 years, and in that time I noticed that many people do not, in fact, experience finance as beautiful. Mostly, they find it to be overwhelming, confusing, and boring. Even scary.
Early on in my career, I'm in a conference room. There’s a senior financial advisor, the client and me.
The meeting begins with the client being presented with a thick stack of financial reports, and then within moments the advisor launches into an investment soliloquy about the history of interest rates, emerging market valuations, the Fed - and within about 10 seconds I see the client check out.
I could see in their eyes - to them, it seemed like finance was overwhelming, confusing, and boring – and just like that, they had checked out of their own financial life.
And THAT is when I realized that if we want people to engage in their financial lives, then finance needs to be clear, approachable and beautiful.
Featured In:
LA BUSINESS JOURNAL THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WEALTH MANAGERS IN LOS ANGELES
FORBES AMERICA’S TOP NEXT-GEN WEALTH ADVISORS (2018)
FORBES NEXT GEN BEST-IN-STATE WEALTH ADVISORS (2019)
Credentials:
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®)
CERTIFIED INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT ANALYST® (CIMA®)
CHARTERED SPECIAL NEEDS CONSULTANT® (CHSNC®)
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL TRANSITIONIST ® (CEFT®)
REGISTERED LIFE PLANNER® (RLP®)
