Valerie Mosley is passionate about the democratization of wealth in America, the leveling of the playing field for the under-served and teaching the world about how valuing themselves is the key to maximizing their wealth.
Val is the founder of Upward Wealth (DBA, BrightUp https://www.getbrightup.com), a fintech platform that democratizes wealth-building and well-being. Its differentiated underwriting algorithm expands access to Compassionate Capital to help end-users grow their net worth. Its content and coaching help end-users reinforce their self-worth.
A financial mind with humble beginnings, Val was born to a working class Philadelphia-area family and is one of 4 siblings. With a strong maternal support structure, she graduated with a BA from Duke University, and ultimately landed at the Wharton School of Finance, the premier financial University in the United States, where she completed her MBA. After various successful roles in finance, Val found a home at Wellington Management, LLP in Boston, a $1.2 trillion global money management firm. Val thrived while raising her 3 kids and identifying under-valued companies and increasing wealth for her clients in the process. She rose quickly to Partner and Senior Vice President at Wellington, managing billions for clients and charging the firm’s Industry Strategy Group. She sat on investment strategy groups that set key parameters for portfolio managers to follow.
Twenty years into her remarkable career at Wellington, she made a life-altering discovery. She came to realize that the people closest to her were “Un-banked” and living under a cloud of financial shame and guilt. While she had risen to the top of her profession in Finance, those close to her were falling victim to a system that left them without financial resources.
At that point, Val decided to make a shift that would change the lives of herself and her family, and she retired from Wellington and set out to correct the wealth/financial disparities in the US. Val has become acutely aware of disparities in interest rates and the impact Federal rate hikes have on under served and under represented groups. Through Val’s work at BrightUp, she seeks to increase the financial fluency of those groups and impact individual self-worth, as studies have found links to lower productivity, and self esteem associated with financial debt.
To complement this philanthropic work, Val serves on the public company corporate boards of Envestnet (NYSE: ENV), DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) and Eaton Vance’s family of mutual funds. She also serves on the boards of New Profit, New Commonwealth Fund and Caribou.
Valerie has been recognized as The International Person of the Year by The UK’s Power List, One of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and one of the Top 75 African Americans on Wall Street by Black Enterprise Magazine. She was also in the spotlight in 2023, recognized by the Executive Leadership Council (ELC) as one of the 10 Black Leaders in Finance.
