Maria Dowd – Financial Services Professional, Renowned Speaker & Financial Literacy Advocate

Personal Notes

My personal calling in life is to serve women who are passionate, and deeply committed to creating a more enriched life and future for themselves and their families, but may be at a loss of how to map out, and fund their journey. Through high-touch financial education, and continuous exposure to new possibilities, my mission is to help forward-thinking women to powerfully advance their life-long dreams and aspirations.

Through collaborative, educational, and coaching strategies that steadily grow self-awareness and self-reliance, my promise is to help increase financial freedom, create inter-generational wealth, and fuel greater lifestyle fulfillment.My personal calling in life is to serve women who are passionate, and deeply committed to creating a more enriched life and future for themselves and their families, but may be at a loss of how to map out, and fund their journey. Through high-touch financial education, and continuous exposure to new possibilities, my mission is to help forward-thinking women to powerfully advance their life-long dreams and aspirations.

Bio

Maria Dowd is an NFEC Certified Financial Education Instructor.

When Maria Dowd started African American Women on Tour (AAWOT) in 1991, she was one of the few making it their mission to empower—and earning a living doing it. Black women across the country flocked to AAWOT to hear Maya Angelou, Gladys Knight, Alice Walker, Iyanla Vanzant, and hundreds of empowerment trainers. Held in more than 40 U.S. cities, the Caribbean, and France over the course of 13 years, AAWOT—the foremost women’s empowerment conference series—touched the hearts of more than 30,000 women and teens worldwide. AAWOT took its final turn in Hilton Head, SC in 2003, on the heels of Hurricane Isabel. Maria interpreted this act of God as a sign that it was time for her to begin the next chapter of her life.

After retiring AAWOT, Maria represented a line of earth-friendly botanical skincare and wellness products and led a direct sales organization of over 1,000 consultants, including Heart & Soul magazine, while developing her career as a motivational speaker. She authored three inspirational books: Journey to Empowerment, Journey to a Blissful Life, and Journey into My Brother’s Soul.  Journey to a Blissful Life was featured in Essence magazine as one of the best books on the topic of personal renewal. Maria was also featured in Black Enterprise, Heart & Soul, and Empowering Women magazines.

Maria is a former guest blogger for Rachel O’s Beauty, is featured in Cheryl Broussard’s Sister CEO: The Black Woman’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business, as well as in Direct Selling Women’s Alliance’s Build It Big: 101 Insider Secrets from Top Direct Selling Experts. She was awarded the 2007 Bravo! award for Businesswoman of the Year from the National Association of Women Business Owners’ San Diego Chapter.

For five years, Maria was CEO of Sol City Beauty Company, McBride Research Lab’s exclusive San Diego distributor of Design Essentials professional line of hair care solutions, serving over 1,200 accounts countywide. Sol City Beauty was not only known for high level of professionalism and customer service, but also for its empowering educational classes events, teaching the business basics. During her tenure, she won the “Rookie of the Year” Award for increasing sales six-fold in her first year of operation, as well as two Distributor of the Year awards. Then her life took a dramatic (if not traumatic) turn after a marital breakup in 2012. This event was a huge wake-up call, as Maria—as so many women do—faced the reality that she had fallen into the trappings of financial co-dependency. It was time to reboot her mindset, financial literacy quota, quality of life, and future.

In the fall of 2016, Maria placed a fateful call to Dr. George Fraser, renowned speaker and author, known as one of the foremost authorities on economic development, networking, and relationship-building. He shared his vision with her—a collaborative vision to facilitate a trillion-dollar, intergenerational transfer of wealth into underserved communities. Maria immediately raised her hand to join the movement, creating her MyMoneyLYFE brand (Live. Your. Freedom. Every day.), designed to proactively support forward-thinking women in fun, awareness-building, and economically prolific ways.

Many millennial-aged professionals witnessed the struggles of their parents to cope with emotionally and financially disruptive circumstances (e.g., home foreclosures and retirement fund losses). MyMoneyLYFE provides tips and tools to help individuals walk wiser paths to freedom, wealth, and intergenerational legacy-building.

“Our mission is to help smart-working families curate and master lifestyles that meet their present-day realities and goals, while strategically and solidly paving a route to a highly gratifying retirement…and more profound sense of purpose. “

Maria is a native Californian, has two entrepreneurial daughters she’s extremely proud of, a 4-year-old grandson (a future rocket scientist), and enjoys family, travel, Zumba, independent films, thrift shopping, multi-media collage-making, and dancing.  Maria has made presentations on main stages and in seminars and book talks, including keynote speeches in the West Indies and Central America.

Are You Ready for National Financial Educators Day?

Access Everything You Need for Financial Literacy Month