Meet The Founder

Jay Stephens is an award-winning leader in finance and the founder of Rich Like My Melanin™. She uses a comedic and relatable approach to transform complex financial concepts into easy and actionable plans with a focus on wealth builders of color. Jay earned her B.S. in International Business from Furman University during the peak of the 2008 recession, allowing her to gain an intimate relationship with debt and economic volatility. She went on to earn an MBA in Finance from Howard University and embarked on a 15-year career in corporate finance including management roles at Deloitte, Meta, and the U.S. Navy.

Jay launched Rich Like My Melanin™ in 2021 to transform complex financial topics into easy and actionable plans. She practices what she teaches - paying off $50,000 of debt, doubling her annual salary, and purchasing her second investment property in less than eight months. As the former Treasurer of a nonprofit organization, she established a $100,000 scholarship grant for high school students. After becoming one of 400,000 people laid off from Big Tech companies in 2022, Jay self-published, “The Good in Goodbye: How To Navigate Job Loss,” to help people rebound from job loss. She is the recipient of the 2023 Sisternomics Grant from the National Coalition of Black Women, the 2022 Community Changemaker Award from Chime Bank and the 2020 Excellence in Community Service Award from the National Association of Black Accountants.