Keynote speaking
I help banks, credit unions, universities, and companies talk about money the way their people actually live with it. Honestly, without shame, and with something they can do about it.
The record
Four thousand people watched eight founders pitch. They voted for mine.
43North, Buffalo, November 2023. Eight founders pitched. Five of us were selected by the judges at a million dollars each. Then the room voted, and I took People’s Choice and another twenty-five thousand. Kredit Academy moved to Buffalo the following year.
Before that, in 2019, Miami gave me a key to the city for community building. That was the year I co-founded the Black Men Talk Tech conference there, while running Kredit Academy.
Partners
My companies have partnered over the years with: Equifax, Edward Jones, M&T Bank, Morgan Stanley, Discover and more.
Contributing author, CUInsight
I write for the credit union trade press. If your team is at a credit union, they already read me.
The million dollar pitch
43North finals, Buffalo. Eight founders, four thousand people, one million dollars on the line. I won the money and the room.
That is a pitch, not a keynote.
Different job, different room. Nine minutes to convince five judges, not forty-five to move a few hundred people. It is the closest thing I have on tape to what happens when I have the stage, and I would rather tell you that now than let you find out on the day. Keynote footage is coming.
The framework
FICO is easy to dunk on. It is reductive, it is opaque, and it makes decisions about people it has never met. And still, it works. It took something complicated and turned it into a number a person can hold in their head. Nobody ever did that for the rest of a life.
FICO uses five factors. I use six. I split collections out on its own, because in life it deserves a conversation the model never gave it.
The rest translate almost directly. Payment history becomes whether you keep your word when keeping it costs you something. Utilization becomes how much of your capacity is already spoken for. Age of accounts becomes how long people have been able to trust you. The math is borrowed. The subject is not.
Read the six factorsThe rooms
You serve members who are often working to improve their financial footing. I give them content that respects rather than patronizes that work.
Your students are being handed a financial system they did not design. I give them a framework for navigating it with dignity.
Your employees are stretched. I give them language for what they are carrying, and a way to start putting some of it down.
I have built nine businesses. I know what it costs. I talk to your people as an operator who survived, not a guru who ascended.
Your cohort has ten weeks and one demo day at the end of it. I won a million dollars on a pitch stage, and I lost on a few others. I tell your founders the difference honestly.
I have been the founder at the microphone and the person on the judging side. A keynote to open the day, or coaching with your founders before they go up.
Two ways in
If you book speakers
You have a date and a room.
Topics, formats, lengths, logistics, and what your audience walks out with. All of it on one page, then a form that takes two minutes.
If you came for yourself
You want to know where you stand.
Eighteen questions, four minutes, six factors, one number. It is free, and the report that follows is the useful part.
The rest of it
The talk is one hour. These are what happens the rest of the year.
Kredit Academy.
The company. Financial literacy and credit access built for financial institutions. Kredit Quest, The Kredit Card, and Kiddie Kredit live there.
The Accountability Post.
Essays on money, dignity, and the long work of showing up. Written here in full. LinkedIn gets the distribution; this is the archive.
Coaching and consulting.
Individuals working on their credit. Founders working on a business. One conversation first, to find out whether it is worth a second.
A score is not a verdict. It is a mirror.
