JOAN KAPLAN
Founder and President

Mrs. Kaplan is Founder and President of MONEY MATTERS FOR KIDS, a division of New York City-based Kaplan Communications Company. With more than fifteen years as a professional communications and education specialist in the financial services industry, she has seen time and again the tremendous gap in many adults’ understanding of financial concepts and tools, and recognized the need for early education that would help young adults develop basic knowledge and sound habits of savings, spending, and investing wisely.

To answer the question asked by so many adults, "Why didn’t someone teach me these things when I was in school?” Mrs. Kaplan developed the content and sequence of MONEY MATTERS FOR KIDS seminars for young adults in both private and public schools. Drawing on effective, time-tested teaching techniques that emphasize student participation and conversational informality, MONEY MATTERS FOR KIDS seminars are tailored specifically to the unique needs and comprehension levels of its students.

Formerly Executive Vice President and Director of Communications for Investors Press, Inc., Mrs. Kaplan has written extensively on risk and pension management, investment strategies, financial and retirement planning, fiduciary and compliance responsibility. She has authored and edited more than a dozen financial education books, as well as numerous newsletters, industry White Papers and briefing reports.

Before joining Investors Press, Mrs. Kaplan headed Joan Kaplan Fine Art, a well-known advisory and curatorial consulting company that advised global financial institutions on the acquisition of museum-quality fine art collections. In addition, she developed related educational programs, hosted tours and panel discussions featuring leading artists and other art world luminaries.

An accomplished public speaker, Mrs. Kaplan has moderated numerous educational conferences and special group meetings, and has developed agendas for dozens of industry-wide conferences on retirement planning, risk and pension management.

She received her B.A. degree with honors from Connecticut College after three years, and has completed graduate course work at Yale University.