Ted Gonder

From February 2014 to June 2015, Gonder served on the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans. The council’s report addressed methods of improving the financial capability of young people in the U.S., including better financial education training for teachers; more access to information about post-secondary education for low-income and minority youth; greater involvement of cities and local communities in young adults’ financial education; and increased integration of technology in promoting access to finance.

In June 2013, Gonder founded the World Economic Forum's Chicago Global Shapers hub. He remains an active Global Shaper today.

In 2012, Gonder spoke on behalf of Moneythink when it was named a White House Champion of Change, and declared that the organization’s goal was to make youth financial capability a social norm in the U.S. by 2030. He also became the organization’s first executive director.

From February 2012 to May 2013, Gonder served as entrepreneur in residence at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he collaborated with other entrepreneurs and senior government officials on initiatives to streamline pathways for foreign entrepreneurs to more easily immigrate to the U.S., grow businesses, and create jobs.

In 2011, Gonder interned at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he researched the relationship between government and startups in Chile. After completing his assignment in Chile and returning to the U.S. later that year, he decided to pursue Moneythink as a full-time venture.

In 2008, Gonder, Shashin Chokshi, David Chen, and Greg Nance established the “American Investment Fellows” club at the University of Chicago based on Nance’s idea to send students from the university’s investment club into local high schools to teach workshops. After the success of a pilot program at the South Shore School of Leadership, the initiative began to spread to campuses across the country. In 2009, the organization was officially rebranded as Moneythink, at which point Morgan Hartley joined as the organization’s fifth co-founder.

After seeing Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth and attending the 2006 Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation Seminar, Gonder launched Project Cooldown, a nonprofit that brought climate change awareness campaigns to high schools across his native California. In 2007, The Climate Project, an organization founded by Gore, appointed Gonder as a student advisor.

Ted Gonder (born January 4, 1990) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founding CEO of Moneythink, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building the financial capability of young adults through technology-enhanced peer mentorship. Until July 2015, he was also a member of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans.