A few years ago, one of Mac Gardner’s clients approached him. She served on the board of a children-serving nonprofit, and she asked if Mac could create some financial literacy materials for the kids the organization served. Mac did — and he learned along the way that many kids have very little exposure to the basics of personal finance. He created The Four Money Bears to help instill in kids those basic principles.

“There are really only four things you can do with money: Spend it, save it, invest it, and give it away. Those are the four building blocks of financial literacy.”

Mac also runs a company, FinLit Tech, that focuses on building bridges between financial literacy and financial technology. He lives in Tampa with his family.