Ashley M. Fox has had dreams of working on Wall Street since she first decided to attend Howard University. Little did she know that this vision would soon propel her into entrepreneurship.
After conquering what some would deem the inevitable, Fox not only became the first person in her family to attend and graduate college, but she also landed her dream career of working with one of the largest banks in the world. Still, there was a desire for more.
“After about eight months at my job, I felt like I didn’t have the desire to be the best person on Wall Street, I wanted to be like the client,” Fox told AFROTECH™.
“I realized that no matter how long I stayed in my Wall Street job, yes, I was making perfect money, but our clients had at least $25 million or more and I felt like I deserved to be on the other end of the table.”
Fox built that table for herself and those who look like her through Empify.
“The biggest lesson I learned on Wall Street was that to build wealth in this country effectively, you have to create your idea or invest in somebody else’s idea,” she explained. “We are taught to go to school, get a job, then you have to get a job to pay for school and buy a house. So many of us have been taught that the key to success is to work hard, but we still aren’t wealthy. We still aren’t financially free and still aren’t financially at ease…but we deserve to be. There has to be something more than just working hard.”
After Wall Street gave Fox the chance to simply be around individuals with money like she’d never seen, the CEO knew that there was one thing she needed to do to open the doors for others – “Change people’s mindsets around wealth versus just telling them how to do it.”
“The idea of money and wealth creation isn’t solely about the information. It’s about the thought process and the mindset you have,” Fox said. “First you have your thoughts that trigger emotions that then lead to action. If your thoughts aren’t right, then the actions won’t be either. Just telling people what to do and giving them the solution isn’t going to solve the problem. Their thinking has to change with it.”
As the creator and founder of Empify, Fox’s number one goal is to help millions of people become investors, helping to change the community’s perspective on purchasing stock and building real generational wealth through achieving tangible goals, all while breaking misconceptions that people have around reaching true financial stability.
“Building wealth is like learning a new language and just like any new language, you have to speak it, you have to read it, you have to be around people who are constantly talking about it for you to become fluent,” said Fox. “When it comes to investing, we have to speak it, read it, and be around people who are constantly talking about building wealth.”
The goal is to end people’s scarcity and lack of mindset, helping them to adjust to living a life where they do not operate out of fear and that starts with programming with children as young as the elementary school level.
Empify, which is a combination of the words “empower” and “modify,” also provides education to people from all walks of life, even tapping in with people who are incarcerated and looking toward learning about stocks, investing, and true wealth-building.
“You can’t get anywhere in life, playing it safe. Creating wealth isn’t about safety. It’s about possibilities,” said Fox as she looks ahead to the future of Empify and how she wants it to have an impact on the community.
“Over the next five years, Empify will be both a brick-and-mortar and online platform that gives adults and children access to financial tools and resources they need to manage, grow, and pass down their wealth,” she continued. “At Empify you will not have to come from money to learn how to build it, how to manage it, and how to invest it. With our technology, we will meet people where they are and help take them where they aspire to go financially. Empify’s education and technology will be within the school systems across the globe so that adults and children are proactively learning Wall Street knowledge without needing Wall Street money to begin. What Kleenex is to tissues, Empify will be to Finance.”
