Money Tales

Money Tales

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Money Tales episodes

  • Formula 4 – That’s Living, with Rocco Orlando
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Rocco Orlando. Rocco tells us that when he was coming out of college, he noticed he was an entitled pretentious person who was taking shortcuts through life because so many doors were open to him. In short, Rocco was becoming someone he disliked. His antidote was to join the army. While Rocco qualified as an officer, he chose to enlist as a private. This allowed him to start at the bottom with the intention of growing up. His plan worked and he gained valuable money insights along the way.
    Rocco began his career as a military officer, serving 10 years in the United States Army, most notably as a Captain with the elite paratrooper unit, the 173d Airborne, based out of Bamberg, Germany. He served multiple combat tours in the Afghanistan theater, sharpening his leadership abilities, while also developing a strong skillset for excelling in high pressure environments.
    Over the course of his professional career, Rocco has been involved in the project management of over 5 million square feet of office space across the country, ranging from complete ground up construction projects to managing and overseeing landlord turnkey solutions. Rocco’s project and construction management expertise ranges from the Fortune 500 to regionalized occupiers.
    Rocco’s most recent success has been managing the overall national expansion project for one of the fastest growing insurance companies in the world, with more than 30 projects closed over the last 6 quarters alone.
    32 min
  • The Allegory of Money, with Esther Choy
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Esther Choy. Esther recently published a white paper on first generation wealth creators. The New York Times featured her report, focusing on the philanthropic aspects of her research. Most wealthy people today created the wealth over their lifetime. This is a major transition for those individuals, who often keep the values they were raised with Esther wanted to understand how the modest upbringings of wealth creators influence them today, and how that plays out in their philanthropic giving. She uncovers that encouraging wealth creators to tell their own stories is the key to unlocking their purpose and values, revealing the causes they want support.
    Esther is the president and Chief Story Facilitator at Leadership Story Lab, where she applies design thinking and science to help her clients articulate and assert who they are, ultimately connecting with audiences in meaningful ways. Esther started teaching leadership storytelling in 2010, before it was a ‘thing.’
    Over the years, through her firm, Leadership Story Lab, she’s worked with clients in industries as wide ranging as airlines, CPG, healthcare, investment, manufacturing and tech. A family enterprise biographer, Esther has combined the science of persuasion and the art of storytelling to help her clients find more meaningful ways to connect with their audiences.
    Her business storytelling book, Let the Story Do the Work, quickly shot to #1 New Release on Amazon in 2017. She’s currently a contributor for Forbes’ Leadership Strategy channel and her thought leadership has appeared in leading media outlets such as the New York Times and Entrepreneur.com.
    Esther is an adjunct faculty member at Kellogg School of Management and, in partnership with Kellogg’s Ward Center for Family Enterprises, she hosts the Family IN Business podcast.
    Every Monday morning, you’ll find Esther beginning her week with a 1000-meter swim and a raw jalapeño. She’s a mom of two trilingual girls, wife of a German who’s not very punctual, and is a very humble student of kitesurfing.
    34 min
  • Values and Sacrifice, with Jeremy Savlov
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Jeremy Savlov. Jeremy is a young, goals-driven professional. An important objective of his is to buy a home. To achieve this desire sooner, Jeremy decided to live with his parents to save money on expensive rent. By living in the suburbs, he’s intentionally sacrificing some of his social life, and rather than splurge in his twenties, he’s focused on saving money for his very own home. As Jeremy shares, it’s very hard to think ahead and do something for your future self when your current self is a little bored or frustrated.
    From a young age, Jeremy was very outgoing and curious. As he grew up, his parents supported him to explore and develop his values. Starting at age 13, he tried out different jobs including working at a restaurant, babysitting, and volunteering as a summer camp counselor for homeless preschoolers. Throughout high school he played soccer and track competitively. From these and other experiences, Jeremy developed his core values: effective communication, compassion, integrity, respect, curiosity/open mindedness, self-improvement, and humor.
    Jeremy attended Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ where he continued to compete in track and graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering in May 2021. While at Stevens, Jeremy took on three engineering-related cooperative work experiences: Con Edison (public utility), New Line Structures (construction management), Amazon (operational efficiency). Since graduating, Jeremy works as a Consultant Engineer for FM Global, a worldwide property insurance carrier. He consults with clients to assess and help them understand a variety of hazards that may pose a threat to both their physical facilities and the continuity of their business operations. He also collaborates with clients to find cost-effective solutions to mitigate these risks.
    In mid-2021, Jeremy began volunteering for his hometown fire department in Monmouth Junction, NJ. This was something Jeremy wanted to pursue at a younger age, but he never had time to attend the fire academy while in college. The knowledge he gains from being a volunteer firefighter overlaps with and improves his understanding of assessing risk with clients he works with at FM Global, and vice versa.
    Jeremy believes the values he has prioritized will help him to continuously grow professionally and personally throughout his life. Jeremy loves seeking new experiences which enable him to ask questions, learn and apply his new knowledge to other parts of his life.
    In his free time, Jeremy enjoys playing soccer, riding his motorcycle and setting aside quality time to spend with family and friends.
    32 min
  • Learning From Mistakes, with Jonathan Goffe
    hardest lessons to learn are often the ones that stick. When he was a young adult, Jonathan hit a financial snag because he wasn’t budgeting. He called an aunt for some assistance. Jonathan explains that she’s the one the family runs to when they need help because she's responsible with money. That said, she isn’t the kind of aunt to provide money without asking questions and offering lessons to avoid financial mistakes in the future. Fortunately for Jonathan, his aunt has been a money mentor to him over the years and has inspired him to leverage what he’s learned to help others make smart financial decisions for themselves.
    Jonathan is the Sr Consultant and the Senior Managing Director of Vermont Consumer Credit Consulting LLC which he founded VCCC in 2021 after spending years in financial institutions doing individual credit counseling and debt negotiating. Jonathan has saved Vermonter’s millions of dollars in debt negotiations over his career.
    Starting his career in social work and back office administrative roles, Jonathan’s early career included roles in Specialized Social Work, Corrections, Business and Corporate Banking in Vermont and across New England. Since then, he has had senior leadership roles in Vermont, and most recently became an Associate in the Vermont Bankers Association and the Education Coordinator for the Shelburn BNI chapter.
    31 min
  • The Tables Have Turned, with Lubna Bhayani
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Lubna Bhayani. Lubna is a globetrotter. For most of her marriage, she followed her husband from country to country, wherever his job took them. Recently, they turned the tables. Lubna relocated the family to Kenya for an exciting position she wanted to take. This latest move has caused the couple to go deep into money conversations, which she shares with us on Money Tales.
    Lubna works for the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Regional Office as the Lead Specialist for Partnerships, Grants Management and Resource Mobilization. With a career spanning over 15 years and several countries, Lubna has worked on issues linking gender and development, women in humanitarian crisis. In recent years, she has focused on universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, especially for those who are most structurally marginalized due to their age, sex, sexual identity and gender orientation. Most recently Lubna has begun to delve into the issue of menstrual hygiene, which should really be a non-issue but is omnipresent yet very absent from broader SRHR discourse. Lubna hopes to design projects and advocate to address this.
    Lubna has an undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and master’s degrees from both the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. She moved to Nairobi in 2021 with her husband and two boys and spends her time ensuring her boys #BreakTheBias and believe women and men are distinctly equal.
    33 min
  • On My Own Terms, with Evelyn Starr

    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Evelyn Starr. Evelyn is an entrepreneur. She started her business when she was pregnant with her second child, and her goal was to be productive outside of the confines of corporate America. Because she and her husband planned their personal finances carefully, they could rely on a single income to cover their expenses. This gave Evelyn freedom to grow her business on her terms and achieve the balance she was seeking.

    Evelyn is an author, brand expert, and marketing consultant with over 25 years of marketing strategy and research experience. Evelyn uses her keen powers of observation and insight to help her clients wow their customers and grow their businesses. She specializes in working with Brands in Adolescence, brands that have stalled after their initial success. Her clients have ranged from small businesses like Laird Superfood and Harbor Sweets to global brands like Hasbro and Gillette.

    Evelyn’s book, Teenage Wastebrand: How Your Brand Can Stop Struggling and Start Scaling, was published in April 2021.

    Before founding E. Starr Associates in 1999, Evelyn worked for some of New England’s most recognized brands including Dunkin’, Veryfine Products and The First Years.  As leader of the Care & Safety category at The First Years, she launched one of the company’s most successful products, the Hands-Free Gate, which won The National Parenting Seal of Approval in 2002.

    Evelyn earned an MBA in Marketing from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and graduated with honors from Vassar College with a BA in Economics and French. Living in the Greater Boston area, her passions include travel, reading, writing, yoga, tea, dark chocolate and nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit in both her husband and her two children.

    See all episodes >

    28 min
  • Values Based Budgeting, with Dr. Mallory Dwinal-Palisch
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Dr. Mallory Dwinal-Palisch. Mallory’s thinking about the role of money in her life drastically changed when her dad unexpectedly died months after he turned 60. Mallory describes him as someone who talked about all the things he was going to do – hike mountains, go on trips, pursue other adventures. But he and her mom didn’t have gobs of money piled up somewhere they weren’t spending. Mallory’s parents were constantly investing and reinvesting, trying to take care of their family and provide for the future. Sadly, Mallory’s dad died without ever doing many of the things he dreamed of. From then on Mallory has been focused on budgeting experiences so she doesn’t look back with a deep sense of regret.
    Mallory is Chancellor of Reach University, and co-founder and CEO of Craft Education System. She has dedicated her life's work to building equity-focused, innovative educational models. Mallory began as a Spanish teacher with Teach for America and, later, co-founded and led a charter school that adapted and codified the Oxford tutorial pedagogy. She then co-founded Reach’s apprenticeship-based university that helps hundreds of school districts across the country grow their own local, diverse and qualified teachers.
    Mallory graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University with a B.A. in Economics, Spanish, and International Studies; additionally, she holds a Ph.D. in Education from Oxford University (dissertation focus: rural teacher shortages), which she attended as a U.S. Rhodes Scholar, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
    34 min
  • Leveraging Capitalistic Engines, with Kasey Lundquist
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Kasey Lundquist. When Kasey was growing up, she worked really hard to make the club volleyball team. She was excited when she achieved this goal, but there was a problem. Club volleyball would cost $2,000 per year. That was outside of what her parents could afford. Kasey shares that she felt crushed by that. It was the first thing in her life that she really wanted to do, and money got in the way. Kasey decided then and there that she didn’t ever want to be in a position like that where she couldn’t do something because she didn’t have the money for it.
    Kasey is co-founder and GP of Rise Together Ventures, a hybrid venture and philanthropy firm that empowers growth stage companies to reimagine the ways their business assets and core strengths can be used to drive social change. Kasey started her career in investment banking and private equity and made the switch to startup operations after earning her MBA. She has worked at pre-revenue, early-stage companies and large venture backed scale-ups, most recently as the head of vehicle operations, EMEA for Bird before making the switch back to the investing side. She enjoys traveling and experiencing other cultures, and has lived in NYC, Chicago, LA and Amsterdam. Kasey received her BA from Duke University and her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. Kasey currently lives in Santa Barbara and is a proud mom of two kids.
    29 min
  • Agency and Autonomy, with Marit Bakken
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Marit Bakken. Marit grew up in Norway where her grandparents had a little farm. For them, money was bartering arrangements with neighbors. As Marit says, they’d pay half a pig to have someone slay their field for a month. Money was tight and the family had to work really hard. When she was twelve years old, her grandfather died. Shortly afterwards, Marit walked into a room and saw her mother and grandmother sitting on the floor, counting money, and crying. They had discovered a hidden stash of cash. The tears were filled with both anger, because that money could have made a difference to the family sooner, and joy because the extra money would help. Marit describes this as a pivotal moment. Seeing two generations of women, crying on the floor because the male head of the family had held this from them, set Marit on a path of agency and autonomy toward her own financial future.
    Marit has worked in communication most of her professional life. She was the Co-Founder of a strategic communications and public relations company, which was recognized as one of the Bay Area’s fastest-growing private companies and largest women-owned public relations company. Today, Marit is the Founder of 360 Relationship, where she is a highly regarded relationship and co-parenting therapist, and divorce mediator. She works closely with family law attorneys and financial advisors to, regardless of circumstances, ensure that people thrive in their lives and relationships.
    32 min
  • Nothing is Permanent, with Morwari Zafar, PhD
    In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Morwari Zafar. Morwari was born in Kabul, Afghanistan to a father who was a diplomat and a mother who was a doctor. As Morwari tells us, in this culture social capital has a much higher value than financial capital. Politics and geopolitical challenges caused her family to move around the globe requiring her parents to take on different, less prestigious jobs in order to take care of their family. They ultimately settled in California. This is where Morwari first began to understand the importance of financial capital. As a young adult in love, family social pressures caused Morwari to decide to marry even though she knew in her heart she wanted to remain single and not have children. During the marriage social capital and financial capital collided. Morwari decided to leave the marriage and pursue the independent life she craved.
    Morwari is an anthropologist and the founder/CEO of The Sentient Group, a human-centered research, education, and training consultancy in the Washington DC area. She is also an adjunct professor of Afghanistan's Political History at Georgetown University. She has worked in both the international development and defense sectors, focusing on diaspora engagement. She served as a Next Generation National Security Leaders Fellow at the Center for a New American Security in 2016, and as a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute conducting an ethnographic study of county militias and gun rights activism in Virginia. Morwari has a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford.
    27 min

About Money Tales

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In American society, money is a taboo topic. By not talking with loved ones and friends about money, we miss opportunities to sort through the noise and learn the vocabulary and skills we need to…