Tim Ranzetta had his first exposure to personal finance early, walking a neighbor’s dog for $5 a week and depositing his earnings at the bank under his father’s watchful eye. That simple lesson in saving paved the way for a career devoted to financial education. After consulting at Bain & Company, working in nonprofits and investment management, and launching several companies, Tim volunteered to design and teach a financial literacy course to high school students in a low-income neighborhood. “I saw both how eager they were to learn, and the ripple effect on their parents, who started asking about investing for retirement,” he recalls. “We get a multigenerational effect.”
The experience set the stage for a new chapter. In 2014, Tim co-founded Next Gen Personal Finance, which aims to revolutionize the teaching of personal finance in schools and improve the financial lives of the next generation of Americans. Under his leadership, NGPF has become the nation’s leading provider of free personal finance curricula and teacher training, used by 127,000 teachers reaching 5 million students each year. “From day one, we made a clear commitment: every NGPF service would be offered at no cost, ensuring that financial barriers would never stand in the way of learning,” Tim explains. NGPF’s advocacy work has been pivotal in shaping policy. A decade ago, only one in 10 students had access to a personal finance course; today, legislation ensures that three out of four will.
Tim is now rallying support for NGPF’s Mission 2030: the bold goal that every U.S. high school graduate will complete at least one semester of personal finance by the decade’s end. “All students deserve access to a personal finance course that is engaging and effective prior to crossing that high school graduation stage,” Tim says. Gerald Wluka, MBA ’96, puts it this way: “Not only has Tim led a movement that is making finance education a requirement across all 50 states, but he’s also leading the education of teachers so they can actually teach personal finance. Tim is a humble guy making a huge, long-term impact on the USA.”
