Celebrity ExpertsIona Bain is an award-winning financial journalist, broadcaster, speaker and author, and is the UK’s go-to voice on millennial money.
In 2011, Iona founded the pioneering Young Money Blog and is now recognised as one of the most respected financial writers of her generation, with a rare combination of accessibility and authority.
Previously a musician, Scottish born Iona created the Young Money Blog to help her generation get to grips with their finances.
Fuelled by personal brushes with fraud and burglary, Iona quickly found an audience with her down-to-earth, witty and helpful analysis of the financial problems facing millennials.
Furthermore, Iona Bain is a staple of online youth and female-focused media, with recent contributions to VICE UK, British Vogue and Refinery 29.
Iona’s empathetic approach has propelled her towards regular punditry on BBC programmes, including Newsnight, Question Time and the One Show. She’s also BBC Radio 1’s Money Hacker in residence for the flagship advice programme Life Hacks.
Iona has been flying the flag for young people’s financial rights on the airwaves for over ten years, most recently becoming a roving financial reporter for Steph’s Packed Lunch.
Podcast appearances range from the Spectator’s flagship Edition show to Free the Geezer with rap group The Manor, demonstrating Iona’s versatility.
Iona writes a weekly column for The i newspaper and is a regular contributor to the Financial Times. Her journalism and commentary have appeared extensively in national and regional titles, including The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Independent and the New Statesman.
Iona is proud of her educational work, having collaborated with BBC Bitesize to produce a series of educational videos and working with Lloyds Banking Academy on the Your Future Finances initiative, the first educational programme in the UK to be fully sign language enabled. She is also the youngest-ever governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.
Financial Keynote Speaker and Millennial Money Expert
As a finance keynote speaker, Iona’s speaking topics include:
Why we’ve struggled… and what we/you can do about it.
An overview of the financial problems, risks and opportunities facing young people, covering:
• the housing crisis, central bank/government policy and the increasing complexity of digital finance.
• the all-important roadblock between financial independence and settlement.
• wider social and cultural trends driving young people’s dissatisfaction with their finances, such as high expectations set by babyboomers.
• biggest myths surrounding millennial finance, from the avocado brunch fallacy to the idea that we’re all self-employed side hustlers.
• the social, economic and financial factors in our favour.
• how individuals and/or organisations can capitalise on technology, expanding knowledge and cultural de-stigmatisation of money to improve our financial outlook.
Young People’s Financial Prospects Post-Covid: The Risks and Opportunities
• How were young people affected during Covid-19?
• What are the current plans to help young people’ build back better, and how effective might they be?
• What will be the financial legacy of Covid for young people?
• How can organisations/young people harness the disruption of Covid to create a new, healthier normal?
Financial Education/Inclusion: Why it Matters and How to Make it Work
An in-depth look at how financial education can transform young people’s understanding of money, looking at:
• the evidence supporting the argument for financial education.
• what’s currently going wrong in financial education.
• how self-taught money education changed my life.
• Iona’s insights gained from 10 years of working on various educational projects.
• approaches and methods that could prove most effective.
• how organisations can use financial education to empower their workforce.
Me, Money and Making it: How I Got Here and What I Learned
An inspirational, fun and insightful look at how Iona went from clueless musician to millennial money guru, covering:
• How a stolen piggybank changed Iona’s outlook on money.
• How to understand your financial psychology and change it for the better.
• How Iona learned to manage my money.
• Key lessons from learning about debt and the easy way to set digital boundaries.
How to own it: Demystifying Savings, Pensions and Investing for a New Generation.
A helpful and accessible talk breaking down the modern financial landscape for young people today, looking at:
• why long-term saving and investing matter for you and the world.
• how to set yourself up to invest for the long-term.
• the basics of pensions, from auto-enrolment to ‘greening’ your retirement fund.
• the three main kinds of investing tech – robo-advisers, platforms and share-trading apps.
• the dangers posed by day trading, forex, Bitcoin and finfluencers promoting high-risk schemes.
• how to protect yourself against fraud and maximise your chances of achieving your goals.
