Bringing more cognitive diversity into our industry starts with getting young people of diverse backgrounds engaged with math and exposed to a possible career in finance. CFA Society San Francisco presents a LIVE Fireside Chat with leaders of Rock the Street, Wall Street (RTSWS), a financial and investment literacy program designed to spark the interest of a diverse population of high school girls into careers of finance.

In the U.S., we start to lose girls in math at age nine. This problem doesn’t exist in many other countries. This is a cultural issue, not a capability issue. Progress will come as a result of an extensive scale of individuals doing their part to change the trajectory of girls in math in their own environments – be that in schools, companies, or homes. RTSWS gets girls re-engaged with the M in STEM, math, at a critical age, when they are on the verge of becoming financially independent; choosing whether or not to go to college; what college they will choose, and which majors/minors they will study. STEM professions lift people out of poverty in one generation.