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My story: why I built Be Your Own CEO

It was the summer of 2017 when a friend said, "we're playing around with this thing called crypto." I had no idea that one sentence would start a journey into understanding the role money plays in the world, and in my own life.

I did all the classic things first. I bought a handful of coins I didn't really understand, sold some at a profit to take my husband to New York, and then mostly forgot about it. Until December 2020, when another friend sent me a video interview with someone talking about Bitcoin.

That one ignited something profound, and set me off on a deep learning journey.

I spent the next two weeks (and the following years) deep in podcasts, and it became clear to me that Bitcoin was a genuine answer to some of the most profound problems in the world. It taught me why we as a society even need money, what role money plays for society and, more importantly, what negative consequences come from flawed money. It took me on a reflection journey of my own relationship with money.

I grew up in a family on welfare, where there was no financial education.

Not at home, not at school. And money was quietly treated as something negative. As an entrepreneur, freelancing as a consultant since 2010, I always struggled with my own pricing, since that is not what drives me. Clients literally told me my prices were too low for the value I brought them. It took this whole multiyear journey to figure out what value and money really meant to me.

I wanted to align it with my own values, not those of my parents or society.

And another thing about money: it has nothing to do with how clever you are. I earned my PhD in 2012, and it still didn't save me from a truly stupid budgeting mistake at eighteen, the week I left home for college. What was it? I'll tell you in lesson one of the Money Journey, when you start your free onboarding. Some stories are worth the cliffhanger.

I never thought that through learning about this thing called bitcoin, I would learn so much about finance, macro economy, monetary policy, inflation, wealth (in)equality and so much more. These are such complex topics that I felt I needed to build a bridge, to share all I have learnt without needing to spend the 1000+ hours that I spent myself on this journey: how savings lose their value, how you buy less and less for the same money, the role of broken money and how to protect your hard-earned money by saving or investing in assets such as stocks, gold, real estate, Bitcoin. To make conscious choices about how you manage your own money mix.

That bridge is where the idea of being your own CEO was born.

Around the same time, AI arrived in the mainstream. Thanks to my background in IT, going back to 1996, I could see straight through the early hype. I cared enough to study it properly, earning an Artificial Intelligence certificate from MIT in 2020, and I devoted a whole chapter of my book on human-centric transformation to the difference between AI hype and AI's real value, the value you only get if you do it well.

AI agents have the potential to live up to a promise IT has been making for over 30 years.

Late last year I found OpenClaw (agentic AI), and finally saw AI deliver on that promise: take the tasks that have little to no purpose off our plates, and give us back time for the ones that do. Teachers can spend their time teaching. Nurses can spend their time nursing. Parents have more time with their kids. That is the potential I feel when it comes to AI, done right.

Bringing the two together, financial and AI education, feels like a superpower.

That's why they live side by side here: to help women feel in control of their financial future, experience what AI can really do, teach their children and grandchildren through MiniCEO, and build a bridge to understanding why Bitcoin matters as a force for good.

And it is reaching further than I imagined. Companies are now also interested in potentially bringing Be Your Own CEO to their female employees, proof that this need is a universal one that many women across the globe face.

What a journey it has been so far. I'm deeply grateful to the pioneer women who helped build and shape this platform with me. I don't know if we'll change the world in this lifetime, but for sure I want to play an active role in trying. Let's go!