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Here Are the Money Heroes on Fortune’s “40 under 40” List

By: Kristen Bahler
Kristen Bahler
Managing Editor | Joined July 2016
Kristen Bahler is a writer and editor with seven years of personal finance experience. She oversees signature Money franchises like Best Places to Live and Best Places to Travel and shapes conversation-driving stories about lifestyle, money and consumer spending.
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Published: Sep 22, 2016 4 min read

Fortune’s 2016 “40 under 40” list of (relatively) young business influentials hit the web this morning, and a few names stand out from a money—and Money—perspective.

Among the impressive folks included in this year’s ranking, four hail from what you might call the personal finance space. Some are changing the way we think about money; others are changing the way we handle it; and some how we earn it. All are shaking up a piece of the money universe, and we’re transfixed. (In fact, Money is so inspired that we’re planning to launch our own list of young personal finance innovators later in the year. Send us your suggestions!)

For now, we want to give credit where credit is due. Here are the newly-minted “under 40” leaders shaping the future of finance. Get inspired.

Brad Katsuyama – CEO & Cofounder, IEX Group (age 38)

Brad Katsuyama, CEO of IEX Group
Chris Goodney—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Katsuyama (#15 on Fortune's list) leapt into the public eye after Flash Boys, Michael Lewis’ 2014 bestseller, touted his IEX Group as a transparent alternative to high-frequency trading.

In June, IEX—which uses a “speed bump” to slow down trading—won regulatory approval for stock exchange status. In a recent interview with Money’S Taylor Tepper, Katsuyama spoke about his goals for the next five years. Among them: “[Becoming] one of the largest markets in the world.”

We’ll be watching.

Jon Stein — CEO & Cofounder, Betterment (age 37)

Jon Stein onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 in New York City.
Noam Galai—Getty Images for TechCrunch

“Robo-advisor” is one of the hottest buzzwords in finance right now, and Stein (#27) is leading the charge.

Betterment, an online wealth management service that uses computer models to deliver financial advice to average investors, launched in 2010. Today, the company has 175,000 customers and almost $6 billion in assets under management, making it the largest wealth management startup in the world, Fortune reports.

“We’ve taken the friction out of the process,” Stein told Money in 2015. “We’ve made it accessible to everyone.”

Tim Ferriss — The Tim Ferriss Show (age 39)

Tim Ferriss speaks onstage at the 2015 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas
Travis P. Ball—Getty Images for SXSW

Ferriss (#28) has three bestselling books under his belt: The Four-Hour Workweek, The Four-Hour Body and The Four-Hour Chef.

These days, though, the self-help guru is best known for his self-help podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. In each episode, Ferriss chats with the most successful people in America (everyone from Tony Robbins to Mike Birbiglia) about their careers. Listeners are enamored—Ferriss’ show has more than 80 million downloads and is the top business podcast on iTunes most weeks.

Adam Grant – Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (age 35)

Adam Grant on stage during the MA Conference for Women in Boston, Mass.
Marla Aufmuth—Getty Images for Massachusetts C

Grant, the youngest tenured professor at Wharton and the author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, tied at #28 with Ferriss on Fortune’s under-40 list, but in many ways, the organizational psychologist is in a league of his own.

As a management consultant, Grant works with Google and tech giants (and Money readers!) on workplace dynamics issues. As an author, he’s currently working on a book about resilience with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Grant also has a growing fan base—his 2016 Ted Talk on “the surprising habits of original thinkers” received an enthusiastic standing ovation.