Meet the woman of the hour, Dr. Charity Ezenwa-Onuaku, the Founder and CEO of WealthyGen Solutions and WealthyGen Foundation. With nearly two decades of rich experience in finance, Dr. Charity is unlocking the power of financial education and empowering individuals, communities, and youth with her financial prowess. Blending her business acumen with educational excellence, she sets new standards with her brainchild. Her journey is a true embodiment of passion, purpose, and perseverance.
A Sneak Peek into Dr. Charity’s Professional Journey
Dr. Charity believes that a diverse background brings about diverse ideas and skills. It opens your vision to new teachings and enables the growth of a diverse environment which in the case, of Dr. Charity has become her strength. She is an undergraduate with a degree in Economics. She loves economics as it gives one a good understanding of people and their behaviour and equips one with the skills to understand the economy. One learns about money and finance, but not as focused as the accounting and finance folks. So, she studied both disciplines at the graduate level, getting an MBA in Finance and an MS in Public Accounting. Then she studied International Business for her doctorate. These diverse yet related academic qualifications gave her a solid understanding of not just the economy, but also the business, the people and behaviour, and how money and finance work.
Encompassing her extensive educational background, she has worked in finance for over fifteen years, mostly in the non-profit sector. She has also worked as an adjunct professor of Finance, teaching Corporate Financial Management at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her significant educational background blended with fulfilling socioeconomic responsibilities in the community action sector, and her teaching experience shaped her path to providing financial literacy education and empowering people to achieve financial well-being. Dr. Charity shares her vast knowledge and experiences through her brainchild, WealthyGen.
Pursuing the Path towards Excellence
“It was confidence that changed everything, landed me my first job, and was the turning point of my career.”
As a profound leader, passionate finance and technology enthusiast, and purpose-driven entrepreneur, Dr. Charity’s professional journey is guided by excellence. She states, “Excellence has become my watchword“, be it for her personality, career, and projects. She believes, whatever is worth doing is worth doing well. Hence, she prioritizes quality as a key decision filter for her company.
With the ultimate vision of empowering individuals, Dr. Charity ensures best-in-class and uncompromising standards for WealthyGen’s products, service offerings, and thought leadership. With a strong focus on creating fintech solutions, she aims to build credibility and drive growth for WealthyGen. Shortly, Dr. Charity envisions making the WealthyGen brand the market leader in FinTech and financial education. Also, it will be known for bringing financial wellness to the workplace as one of the benefit offerings every organization can offer their employees.
Unleash the Power of Sustainable Growth
WealthyGen believes in the impact of its products and services as it empowers its members to build generational wealth through best-in-class guidance, services, and products. At the core of their mission is the concept of “The Other Wealth” which embraces the belief that true wealth is not measured by how much money one has. Instead, it lies in expanding one’s understanding of wealth beyond money and effectively leveraging it to the advantage – skillfully managing, nurturing, and sustaining its flow throughout life. Fueled by this philosophy, WealthyGen is relentlessly committed to crafting ingenious and sustainable solutions that improve financial literacy, guide efficient money management, and unlock sustainable growth.
Dr. Charity adds, “Our major differentiator is a strong focus on sustainability, combining technology, capacity-building education, and enterprise development to empower individuals and families for sustainable growth, with a particular emphasis on lifting people out of poverty. This unique approach sets our programs apart in terms of their social impact and long-term benefits.”
An Overview of WealthyGen Foundation and WealthyGen Solutions
WealthyGen Foundation is an NGO, which provides financial empowerment programs for women and youth. One of the key offerings under the NGO is the FEYA Program. Dr. Charity adds, “We are catching them young!” Through the FEYA program, the organization targets young adults, who are yet to begin, or who have just started their independent financial lives. The program empowers them to acquire knowledge, gain practical money skills, and develop the confidence to make informed financial decisions. Financial literacy is an essential life skill. Developing financial literacy is crucial as it forms the very foundation for a multitude of pivotal, life-changing decisions. From critically analyzing credit card offers to analyzing employment agreements or acquiring a first home, this indispensable skill equips young adults with the power to navigate life’s significant milestones with confidence and success. WealthyGen has empowered many youths in Maryland and DC.
The organization also believes education could be that fine line between poverty and economic empowerment. Its Scholarship Program provides access to support and resources for women and youth to pursue educational opportunities that improve their well-being. So far, it has awarded cash scholarships to high school seniors in Prince George’s County, Maryland for three consecutive years, with 2024 upcoming awards making it its 4th year.
WealthyGen’s impact extends beyond the United States and reaches Africa where it has provided better lives for many widows through its signature Women Empowerment Project (WE Project). It has set up businesses for many widows who live in poor households in Nigeria to help them earn sustainable income. In addition, the organization provides financial education for them, trains them on how to run their businesses, and opens savings accounts for them. This all is done at no cost to the widows.
One thing the WealthyGen Foundation did with its WE Project was make it
a community-based project through which they empower many widows from the same community, at once. The impact of this strategy is that they form a cooperative, working together to support each other to grow, and acting as inspiration and motivation for other women around them. The WE Project has changed a lot of widows’ lives. They can now earn their income and look after their children without depending on anyone.
WealthyGen Solutions is the Fintech company revolutionizing the way people engage with their finances by seamlessly blending user-friendly financial tools with easily accessible financial education, empowering people to manage their money efficiently and achieve sustainable growth. Its flagship fintech product is the WealthyGen App. WealthyGen app is an all-in-one money management mobile application that helps people know their finances, get clarity, gain confidence, and transform their finances. With the WealthyGen app, one can effortlessly track income and expenses and manage budgets, financial goals, assets, debts, and net worth, all in one convenient place.
WealthyGen Solutions also created theWealthyGen Planner, an un-dated annual, monthly, and weekly planner that helps people plan their dream lives, bring their future to the present, and start doing something about it and achieving their goals. The planner was its first take on providing a tool to assist individuals in planning their busy lives and managing their finances. It is in the form of a unique portable notebook. People love it because it’s a life planner and a budget book in one. The feedback has been great.
Integrating Technology for a Seamless Customer Experience
Dr. Charity is a next-gen entrepreneur, who believes in keeping up with time and is staying ahead of the technological curve. WealthyGen’s response to adapting technology led to the creation of the WealthyGen app. People who still prefer the manual ways of paper and pen find the planner very useful, but the more technically savvy ones, who are willing to leverage technology in managing their finances more effectively are actively using the WealthyGen app and transforming their finances. So, both exist as tools for financial empowerment for whatever works best for a widespread user audience. The product and service offerings under the two companies are geared towards the same mission of empowering people to achieve financial well-being and build generational wealth.
Times of Triumph
Dr. Charity’s academic journey has been successful, earning her a place in the Alpha Chi College Honor Society and Golden Key International Honor Society. She has also received various designations such as:
- Chartered Economist (ChE) by the American Academy of Financial Management (AAFM)
- Master Financial Planner (MFP) by the American Academy of Financial Management (AAFM)
- Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI) by the National Financial Educators Council (NFEC)
- Certificate in Economic Measurement by The National Association for Business Economics (NABE)
- Verified Certificate (Financing for Development) by the World Bank Group
With her wealth of experience and outstanding performance, she has also received the following awards and recognitions:
- Board of Honorary Global Advisors by the American Academy of Financial Management (AAFM)
- Honoured Listee (A Subject of Biographical Record 2023) by Marquis Who’s Who Publication Board
- The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 by AmeriCorps through PEP Africa International
- Cover Page Magazine Feature on “Millennium” a Marquis Who’s Who Magazine (2024)
- Nasdaq Market Site Tower Feature as a Milestone Maker in 2024 by Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center
In 2023, the United Nations bestowed on WealthyGen Foundation with Special Consultative Status for helping many achieve their financial goals.
Projects in the Pipeline
Dr. Charity is developing a robust financial wellness program that targets organizations in the United States as a benefit package they can offer to their employees. This program will include a comprehensive “Master Your Finances” online course, access to its all-in-one money management mobile application, and select workshops for employees of each organization.
This project is exciting because its implementation will help WealthyGen reach more people with its financial wellness message, and also drive growth. The challenging part of the project is designing the program in a way that is efficient enough to cater to the needs of organizations at any stage while showcasing the program’s benefits to not just the employees, but also to the organizations.
Dr. Charity’s Source of Inspiration
Dr. Charity’s greatest inspiration is her mother. As the famous quote goes, “Charity begins at home“, Dr. Charity’s childhood was a learning experience. She grew up learning the greatest money lessons from her parents who were at both ends of the money principle-spectrum. She fondly adds, “These money lessons never made sense to me until I moved to the US and got into school to advance my career in Finance. During this time, everything my parents did made more sense to me. I began to understand why some people couldn’t sustain their wealth. That’s how I started teaching people around me, starting with my friends and fellow Africans who also needed guidance to navigate the system.” WealthyGen was born out of this inspiration, to educate people on how money works and the different money principles that can help people achieve financial wellness and sustainable growth.
The Story of Success
For Dr. Charity, success means becoming the highest level professional she can become in Finance and doing it effortlessly while enjoying the work.
For WealthyGen, success is measured by individual outcomes. The organization’s philosophy is that one person matters, so it takes one person at a time. Each time it receives one success story, it is one step closer to achieving its goal. It is these individual success outcomes that keep Dr. Charity motivated every single day.
Dr. Charity’s Golden Piece of Advice
“The most important investment you can ever make is investing in yourself. You are your biggest asset, and you can achieve anything you want to achieve. So, whatever your goal is, invest in developing that capacity within you. Need a promotion or a better-paying job? Learn a new skill or improve on your existing skill. Need a business, invest in learning all about the business. Want to build wealth? Learn how money works. It’s all in you, you need to optimize it and develop the right mindset. If everything fails, your human asset is one thing that remains with you, and you can always fall back on it. You are your biggest asset!”
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