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SORAYA MORRIS

Lead trainer, Envestnet | MoneyGuide

Soraya Morris works full-time as a lead trainer at MoneyGuide, delivering live trainings on financial technologies and practice management webinars to financial advisers. But she puts in almost as much time giving back to her community, having provided financial literacy and mentoring to teens and young adults for more than a decade. Young people are very open to financial information, she said.

“There’s so much financial stress they are dealing with and they want to relieve that stress. They’re planning weddings, starting families, buying houses,” Morris said. Currently, she is part of a financial mentoring team at her church, working primarily with 18- to 30-year-olds. Programming includes an 8-week budgeting boot camp, one-to-one financial coaching sessions, and workshops on home buying and entrepreneurship. The team has helped participants pay off $300,000 in debt in five years, she said.

Additionally, Morris mentors students from her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University, exposing them to different career options and introducing them to career concepts such as company culture and networking. Pro bono outreach is important for the industry, she said. “There’s a distrust of financial professionals. It’s our job to build those relationships and build that trust,” she said.

Deborah Nason