How Financial Activism Can Help Build a Gender-Equitable Economy
By 2030, women are expected to control $34 trillion of U.S. financial assets, a three-fold increase in just a decade. But research shows women want more than a financial return on their investments; they want to use their money to spend, save, invest, and give in alignment with their values. Led by Aspen FSP Senior Fellow Heather McCulloch, this Women in the Economy dialogue features an in-depth discussion with two authors and impact investors who are helping women and people of color become “financial activists” in order to use the power of their money to support the change they want to see in the world.
Janine Firpo is the author of Activate Your Money: Invest to Grow Your Wealth and Build a Better World and the co-founder of Invest for Better, a nonprofit helping women build their investment knowledge and grow their wealth. Jasmine Rashid, director of impact at Candide Group, is a financial activist, impact investor, and author of the new book, The Financial Activist Playbook: 8 Strategies for Everyday People to Reclaim Wealth and Collective Well-Being.
The Women in the Economy Dialogue Series, hosted by the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, features in-depth discussions with journalists, authors, filmmakers, and other thought leaders about how to redesign the economy so women are able to strive, thrive, and fully contribute to their families’ financial security and the nation’s economic growth.
*By “women,” we mean all individuals who identify as female.
Speakers
Heather McCulloch, Senior Fellow, Aspen Institute Financial Security Program
Heather McCulloch is a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and a national thought leader on gender economic equity. She launched the Women in the Economy (WE) project at Aspen FSP, a two-year initiative to inform the design of a gender-equitable economy based on the insights, wisdom, and lived experience of working women across America.
Heather has more than two decades of experience working as an advocate and thought leader in closing the racial and gender wealth gaps and building an equitable economy. Previously, she founded and led Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap (CWWG), a multiracial/ethnic, cross-sector network of leaders working together to transform public policies and systems to advance gender economic equity. Prior to starting CWWG, she was the principal of Asset Building Strategies, a consulting firm that supported nonprofit, philanthropic, public, and private-sector leaders to advance policies and strategies to build the financial security of low-wealth families; and a founding staff member of the national nonprofit, PolicyLink.
Her insights have been covered in major news publications, including CNN Business, Fast Company, The Hill, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, NPR Marketplace, Slate, and USA Today. She earned an MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley.