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Giovanna González

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Financial literacy

Age:31

Organization: The First Gen Mentor

Title: Founder

City: Chicago

State: Illinois

 

As part of “The Great Resignation,” Giovanna “Gigi” González quit a fulfilling career in investment management to pursue her real passion: teaching financial literacy and career readiness to young adults.

As a child of Mexican immigrants, her focus is on helping first-generation young adults learn about financial literacy and career readiness. She teaches about the subjects at colleges and universities and on her TikTok account @thefirstgenmentor and runs workshops through her company, the first-gen mentor.

A social media influencer reaching a community on Tik Tok of more than 180,000 followers, she reaches out through workshops as well as educational and entertaining videos where she leans on her decade long experience in financial services as well as her two years as a pro-bono financial educator at the YWCA of Arizona. 

Her story has been featured in the New York Times, Fast Company, and Money Magazine. She was selected to be a part of TikTok’s inaugural TikTok Latinx Creatives and was selected to be part of LinkedIn’s Creator Accelerator Program.

Before starting her business in 2021, she was a senior associate, second vice president at Northern Trust Management where among other responsibilities she was responsible for producing monthly and quarterly performance reports for more than 18 OCIO, or outsourced chief investment officers, clients with an aggregate total portfolio value of $7.5 billion. She also prepared, calculated, and distributed securities lending net income contributions reports for more than 60  collective investment trust funds as well as mentoring and participating in the training and onboarding of junior analysts.

As the child of immigrants, first-generation college graduates, and first-generation white-collar professional, she acknowledges the need for groups like HACE to provide support. This is a major reason why she started her company. 

She credits HACE for recognizing her potential as a social media influencer before she did. She was doing social media as a fun hobby and did not give it much thought. She said HACE’s trust in her played a large role in her leaping from a corporate career to a career as a full-time content creator.