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Maddy Dychtwald

Maddy Dychtwald

Maddy Dychtwald is an internationally recognized author, entrepreneur, business advisor, and thought leader on the age wave

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Fee Range: 10000-19999, 20000-39999
  • As a Co-Founder of Age Wave, Maddy has studied the impact of aging and longevity on the population and particularly women for over 30 years. Recently, she led several studies on women and financial wellness, the latest one being “Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line.” This compelling research is a wake-up call to all leaders on women’s rising economic clout, the financial consequences of their unique life journeys, the impact of family interdependencies, and understanding what matters to women beyond the bottom line.
  • As an entrepreneur for over 30 years, having worked while raising her children and playing an active caregiving role to her Mom,, she understands many of the unique challenges, opportunities and expectations women face first-hand. She has tried to find fresh approaches to understanding why women’s life journey is so different than men’s and the financial consequences of these differences. She can deliver a powerful story on women and financial well-being with stories and solutions to open the door to productive conversations that can catalyze the ability of women to prepare, plan for and have financial peace of mind throughout their longer lives.

*Fee ranges are presented as a guideline only. Speaker fees are subject to change without notice. For an exact quote, please contact your Speaker Exchange Agency representative.

Recently recognized by Forbes as one of the top fifty female futurists globally, Maddy Dychtwald has been deeply involved for more than 30 years in exploring all aspects of the age wave and how it’s transforming the marketplace, the workplace, our world, and our lives. This has led her to become an internationally acclaimed author, public speaker, Wall Street Journal blogger, and thought leader on longevity, aging, the new retirement, and the ascent of women.

A successful entrepreneur, Maddy co-founded Age Wave, the world’s leader in understanding and addressing the far-reaching impacts of our aging population. The Age Wave team has worked with more than half of the Fortune 500 in industries ranging from healthcare and medical technology to financial services and consumer products.

A successful entrepreneur, Maddy co-founded Age Wave, the world’s leader in understanding and addressing the far-reaching impacts of our aging population. The Age Wave team has worked with more than half of the Fortune 500 in industries ranging from healthcare and medical technology to financial services and consumer products.

With women at the forefront of the longevity revolution, Maddy has deeply explored their specific longevity-related wants, needs, and challenges. She has led numerous acclaimed studies on women and money, including the landmark Women, Money and Power sponsored by Allianz and, most recently, Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In addition, she has been involved in more than 25 thought leadership researchstudies worldwide on aging, longevity, retirement, health, family, caregiving, housing, and leisure, which have cumulatively garnered more than twelve billion media impressions.

She is the author of three books, Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy (voted Book of the Year by the National Community Colleges Association), Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, and the children’s/young readers’ book Gideon’s Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings. Currently she is working on a new book, Women’s Longevity Bonus, that combines her professional and personal passions.

As a member of The Wall Street Journal’s Expert Panel on Retirement, Maddy’s posts on leadership, wealth management, and financial planning have topped the most-read lists for their categories in 2017 and 2018. Currently, she serves as the national co-spokesperson for an in-depth investigation on The Four Pillars of the New Retirement: What a Difference a Year Makes sponsored by Edward Jones. Her insights and research have been featured in prominent media outlets, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Newsweek, Time, Fox Business News, CNBC, and NPR.

Having watched both her mother and mother-in-law battle dementia, Maddy is committed to eradicating this horrific disease. She is a co-founder of the non-profit Women Against Alzheimer’s and serves as a board member of the non-profit BrightFocus Foundation, which funds cutting-edge research to cure diseases of the brain and eye.

A working mom for much of her adult life, Maddy is now an empty nester. She is passionate about her family as well as about longevity as both a demographic phenomenon and her personal journey. She and her husband Ken were recently awarded the prestigious Esalen Prize for their outstanding contributions to advancing the human potential of aging men and women worldwide.

Women & Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line

The growing financial power of women may be the most important demographic trend impacting financial services today. New generations of empowered women—bolstered by unprecedented levels of education, workforce participation, rising geopolitical power, and escalating income and wealth—are assuming increasingly influential roles in their own and their family’s financial management. The financial services industry, historically catering primarily to men, must find new ways to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of this critical and growing client base.

Drawing on insights from decades of Age Wave research, including the highly acclaimed nationwide study Women & Financial Wellness and her landmark book, Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Change Our World for the Better, Age Wave co-founder Maddy Dychtwald combines data and powerful storytelling to address these topics:

  • How greater longevity can catalyze women of all ages to plan for their longer lives
  • How a woman’s life journey is still fundamentally different than a man’s with vast financial implications
  • How family interdependencies impact women and their approach to money
  • Unpacking the gender retirement gap
  • Defining the lifetime pay gap and wealth gap: what they are, how they’re different, and the steps women can take right now to make up for them
  • The important role men can play in this new financial equation
  • The 5 critical characteristics women look for in their financial professional and the 5 steps financial professionals can take to more effectively meet women’s wants, needs, and goals

Deeply researched, customized for each unique audience, and packed with actionable takeaways, Maddy’s illuminating approach to these urgent issues brings new focus to a topic that grows more relevant each day, leaving audiences—whether they be women wanting to take charge of their own financial security or the financial professionals who want to better serve them—with food for thought and concrete ideas for implementing and adapting to change.

The New 50+ Woman: A Consumer Force to Be Reckoned With

50+ women as a consumer force have been hiding in plain sight, but that is about to change. Bolstered by unprecedented levels of education and workforce participation, escalating income and wealth, and rising longevity and vitality, they are fast becoming the most powerful and influential segment of the consumer marketplace. Yet they often feel ignored or misunderstood by brands and marketers and don’t want to be defined through a youth-focused gender lens or by their age alone.

Drawing on decades of proprietary Age Wave research, including the highly acclaimed study led by Age Wave co-founder Maddy Dychtwald, Women and Financial Wellness: Beyond the Bottom Line, and insights from her landmark book, Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Change Our World for the Better, Maddy explains why 50+ women are a consumer force to be reckoned with for businesses of all kinds from financial services and healthcare to fashion and home furnishings.

From her vantage point as a successful entrepreneur, author, researcher, Wall Street Journal blogger, wife and mother—and a 50+ woman herself—Maddy combines data-driven insights with inspirational storytelling, illuminating this market segment’s core attitudes, motivations, and behavioral patterns, and offering the keys to unlocking its consumer potential.

Topics explored in this new presentation include:

  • The size and financial clout of this growing market segment
  • The consumer purchasing power and passions of this market, including their approach to spending, gifting, saving, and investing
  • How 50+ women are disrupting aging, leading the longevity revolution
  • The emotions, desires, and concerns that motivate their purchasing decisions
  • The ageist messaging that turns them off—and how to avoid these communications pitfalls
  • How technology and social media can be both a barrier and a benefit
  • How today’s different generations of women influence each other and their purchasing decisions
  • The five-step action plan you need to capture this powerful market segment

Deeply researched, customized for each unique audience, and packed with actionable takeaways, Maddy’s illuminating approach brings new focus to this emerging market segment and leaves audiences with food for thought and concrete ideas for implementing and adapting to change.

The Future of Retirement: New Timing, New Purpose, New Funding-and New Planning Help Needed

With the convergence of rising longevity, the aging of the massive Boomer generation, and widespread financial insecurity stemming from the COVID pandemic, there is a greater need than ever for trusted, holistic financial guidance. Americans want financial professionals who seek to understand what matters most to them and their families and can help them achieve their goals.

This new presentation draws on cutting-edge new research that spans five generations. Maddy will outline the most important questions in retirement planning today and explain how financial professionals can demonstrate greater empathy to safeguard a well-lived retirement by providing targeted solutions for these uncertain times.

Topics to be covered include:

  • Why has financial peace of mind become far more important than wealth?
  • What are the greatest worries in achieving a financially secure retirement?
  • How could “generational generosity” jeopardize retirement?
  • In what ways is women’s rising financial power transforming the field of retirement planning?
  • How will the demands of eldercare, sibling care, grandparenthood, singlehood, and “rehirement” impact retirement planning?
  • Leaving a legacy: managing the greatest generational hand-off in history
The Rise of History’s Biggest Untapped Market–It’s Hiding In Plain Sight!

Men and women over 50 now make up 33% of the total U.S. population and 44% of the adult population but control more than 70% of total wealth. Due to the combination of rising longevity, declining fertility, and the aging of the Baby Boom generation, this group is now bigger than the entire market of most countries. As active and curious consumers, they are responsible for 53% of all food and grocery purchasing; 55% of all travel and leisure consumption; 56% of new car and truck purchasing; 68% of OTC drugs and 77% of all Rx drug consumption; and 78% of all retirement accounts. However, people 50+ only appear in 15% of advertisements and are disproportionately portrayed as old, sick, and homogenous.

Maddy will explain how to best target this massive, misunderstood, misrepresented, and wildly untapped new market. She’ll illustrate why 20th century notions of “lifetime brand loyalty,” “retirement,” and “seniors” have become obsolete and how with impending breakthroughs in precision medicine, living to 100+ will soon become commonplace. And she’ll provide a mind-stretching preview of the products, services, marketing, and advertising that will succeed at meeting the needs and aspirations of this new “Third Age” while eliminating the ageism that has impeded shareholder value for too long.

Ageless Aging: How Longevity is Transforming Health, Wellness, and Aging Itself

The question of how to live longer has fascinated us since the beginning of time. In the past century, we’ve seen skyrocketing life expectancy that has turned long life into a reality—radically transforming the demographic landscape and altering our concepts of aging and longevity as well as health and lifelong wellness.

The converging forces of lengthening lifespans, global population aging, and the massive Baby Boomer generation facing their later years head-on are reshaping our world and creating a more ageless aging. It’s time to better understand what this is: both the opportunities and challenges that longevity can and will bring. It’s also time to figure out how to maximize our own “longevity bonus” years and prepare for the large-scale business, social, and lifestyle implications of this unprecedented longevity revolution.

Drawing on insights from decades of Age Wave research, this dynamic presentation—delivered by Maddy Dychtwald, award-winning author and co-founder of Age Wave—unites data with powerful storytelling to explore the near-future of longevity, health, and wellness.

Key questions to be answered include:

  • What is a “longevity bonus” and how does it impact our lives?
  • How long will we/can we live?
  • How old is old?
  • How will longevity impact our work/retirement equation?
  • How will family and caregiving be impacted by longer lives with many generations alive at once?
  • What are the biggest fears of living a long life?
  • How do we match our healthspan to our lifespan?
  • What are the financial implications of our longevity?
  • What are the 5 steps to unlocking ageless aging?

Deeply researched, customized for each unique audience, and packed with actionable takeaways, Maddy’s illuminating approach to these urgent issues brings new focus to the topic that’s increasingly on everyone’s mind, from business leaders and policymakers to individuals planning for their own future. Audiences leave with a new perspective on longevity, what it means for them personally and professionally, and concrete ideas for implementing and adapting to change.

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