Tori Dunlap was only 9 years old when she began her journey in the business and finance world. Granted, she didn’t start out as the renowned money expert, New York Times bestselling author, and successful podcaster she is today, but her first entrepreneurial venture was still pretty impressive: With a little help from her dad to get started, she ran a vending machine company that turned out to be quite successful. “I learned how to run a business,” Dunlap tells Her Campus about those early days in an exclusive interview. “I was writing checks when I was 10. I was understanding profit and loss.”
This was just the beginning of Dunlap’s career — which has since soared to massive heights. After Dunlap saved her first $100,000 at the age of 25, Dunlap quit her corporate job and started her brand, Her First $100K, in order to fight for women’s financial rights and empower women to achieve financial freedom. Through her programs and money tools, as well as her book and podcast — both called Financial Feminist — Dunlap is breaking the mold of financial education, taking the shame and stigma out of her conversations and prioritizing inclusivity.
You might be shocked to discover Dunlap didn’t major in finance or business in college — instead, she has dual degrees in organizational communication and theater. But Dunlap believes these degrees helped her become so successful. “My background in understanding how people’s brains work and how to connect with people is such a skill that you need to be an entrepreneur and you need to be a founder,” she says. “With my theater degree, I got very used to hearing no and not letting that tear me down. I understood how to improvise, and how to think on the fly. I understood pitching myself well with marketing and storytelling, understanding how to connect with other people, how to communicate well, and how to write. So my degrees have very much lent themselves to the work I do now.”
A founding principle of Dunlap’s business is intersectional feminism, and she stresses the interconnectedness of financial health and political activism. “At Her First $100K, [we believe that your financial situation is] about 20% your personal choices, but 80% systemic oppression, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, a trillion-dollar student debt crisis, stagnating minimum wages … I think it’s really important to not only acknowledge it but also work to change that part of the system.”
Dunlap is proud of what she calls the “Hallmark accomplishments” she’s achieved thus far in her career, like making the New York Times bestseller list, being able to speak at a wide variety of events, and meeting people that she looked up to and now calling them peers. However, her most profound accomplishment is the impact her business has on the lives of women.
“I get to change women’s lives every single day, and I get to give women jobs, and we get to talk about why this is so important, and see the actual impact on women’s lives daily,” she says. “At this point, I could probably get a message every five minutes from a woman somewhere, saying, ‘I saved my first $1,000’ or ‘I paid off my student loans,’ ‘I left my abusive marriage because I have money now for my own and I feel so much more confident in every aspect of my life now.’ That’s the feeling I want from every single woman on this planet.”
By virtue of her job, Dunlap is asked a lot for advice. One piece she always gives is to worry less. “I was ambitious in elementary school and middle school and high school and college, and I kept worrying about what was next, as opposed to being present,” she says. Instead, she implores young women to appreciate where they’re at in the moment. “It might not be the prettiest version, and it might not feel like you’re moving forward, but you are.”