
From Financial Literacy to Financial Opportunity: Helping the Next Generation Build Wealth with Melanie Mortimer
Melanie Mortimer, President of the SIFMA Foundation, joins The Power of the Ask to talk about the role financial education can play in expanding opportunity, building confidence, and helping young people see themselves as investors and financial decision-makers. Drawing on her own early lessons about money and decades of work expanding access to financial education, Melanie shares why learning the fundamentals is only part of the equation. She also explores the importance of access to assets, experiential learning, emotional decision-making, and giving young people the tools to navigate an increasingly complex financial world. Melanie, Lisa, and Precious cover: Learning Delayed Gratification Early: Melanie shares a childhood lesson from her older sister that helped her understand the value of saving, patience, and connecting financial decisions to personal behavior and values. Expanding Access to Financial Opportunity: Melanie explains why financial education and access to assets need to work together, especially for families and communities that may not traditionally see investing as something available to them. Making Financial Education Experiential: Through programs like the Stock Market Game and SMG InvestQuest, the SIFMA Foundation gives young people opportunities to practice investing, make decisions, and learn from real-world market behavior. Managing Emotions Around Money: Melanie discusses how students learn firsthand that reacting emotionally to market movements can lead to poor decisions, helping them develop habits they can carry into adulthood. Preparing Young People for a Changing Financial World: From evaluating online information to understanding newer topics like cryptocurrency and prediction markets, Melanie explains why financial education has to evolve while still teaching the fundamentals of investing and wealth building. Building Confidence to Keep Learning: At the heart of Melanie's work is helping young people feel that they belong in the financial world and have the confidence to continue learning, asking questions, and making informed decisions. Why Asking Matters: Melanie reflects on why she's always felt comfortable raising her hand and asking questions, and why learning from one another can open the door to knowledge, relationships, and opportunities we might otherwise miss. Important Links: Savvy Ladies (https://www.savvyladies.org/) Precious Williams' LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/precious-l-williams/) Lisa Zeiderman's LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisazeiderman/ Melanie Mortimer's LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-mortimer/) Important Links for Melanie: Melanie Mortimer's Bio: (https://www.sifma.org/people/melanie-mortimer) About Melanie Mortimer: Melanie Mortimer is President of the SIFMA Foundation, the nation’s leader in youth investor and financial education that ensures all young people, regardless of background, have access to transformative knowledge and tools to prepare for their financial futures. The SIFMA Foundation cultivates tomorrow’s workforce and prudent investors through programs that excite youth about the dynamism and opportunity inherent in the capital markets, while improving their STEM performance and critical life skills. The Foundation teams financial professionals with 15,000 educators each year to confidently teach personal finance and help students chart pathways to careers in the sector. The SIFMA Foundation is on a bold new mission to expand its cumulative reach to 20 million students, including 10 million girls, within the next three years, and enlisting funding and support of individuals and financial institutions and the partnership of school districts, government leaders and teachers nationwide to achieve this goal. Prior to joining the SIFMA Foundation, Mortimer was Merrill Lynch’s Director of Global Philanthropy, managing signature programs focused on financial literacy, global citizenship, and entrepreneurship for millions of youth across 70 countries and the firm’s arts and culture grants, educational scholarship programs, skills-based volunteer initiatives, and global team-building community events. Prior to that, Mortimer led employee, shareholder and executive communications for the international business arm of multi-billion dollar trading firm Itochu Corporation in Japan. She also served as Senior Editor and Contributing Writer in her four years at Tokyo Journal magazine, where she managed a team of researchers, writers, and editors and their contributions to the publication. Mortimer obtained her Master’s in International Management and her MBA from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan as a Mombusho Fellow and her BA in English from Agnes Scott College in Georgia. She is a 2019 graduate of the Securities Industry Institute at Wharton. Mortimer has published numerous articles, is the recipient of several awards and honors, and has served on a number of boards including Philanthropy New York (Vice Chair), Virtual Enterprises International (Advisory Chair), NYC Department of Education CTE Business & Finance Industry Commission (Chair), Jumpstart Coalition (Secretary) and Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals. In 2017, Mortimer was named a Sterling Fellow, a network of multi-sector leaders working to increase economic mobility in New York City.











