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Hertenstein awarded $15,000 from Prudential at inaugural Emerging Visionaries Summit
NEWARK, N.J. — Isaac Hertenstein, 16, of Greencastle, was among five young people named grand prize winners by Prudential Financial’s Emerging Visionaries program at a four-day summit held this week at Prudential’s Newark headquarters.
The Emerging Visionaries program is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the social entrepreneurship network Ashoka, with advisory support from the Financial Health Network. It honors young people ages 14-18 from across the United States for leading initiatives that result in fresh, innovative solutions to current-day financial and societal challenges.
“Supporting the efforts of these Emerging Visionaries is another way we are working to fulfill Prudential’s purpose: to make lives better by solving the financial challenges of our changing world,” said Prudential Chairman and CEO Charles Lowrey. “We’re honored to celebrate the initiative, creativity and empathy of these young leaders, and look forward to seeing all the great things they accomplish in the future.”
Hertenstein founded Students Teaching Finance, an initiative that empowers high school-aged changemakers to teach financial literacy to K-8 students and promote financial inclusion in his rural community. The program is modeled for students globally through its website and the initiative has an open-source curriculum, making it a collaborative creation.
He works to maintain and augment the inclusivity of the program’s resources by tailoring lessons to a range of developmental levels and backgrounds.
In 2020, Hertenstein started this initiative after witnessing the stark wealth gap impacting his community firsthand.
“The financial discrepancies in my community sickened me, and I pondered a potential solution,” he explained.
To date, “Students Teaching Finance” has brought its lessons to more than 325 students with all participants reporting that they are now more motivated to invest and save.
The 25 winners, named in February, each earned a $5,000 prize and an all-expenses-paid trip to this week’s Emerging Visionaries Summit, plus a chance to win an additional $10,000. The summit included an awards ceremony where finalists were celebrated by special guests, including philanthropist and two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Eli Manning. The students also consulted with Prudential senior leaders on topics of strategy and impact and worked with Prudential employee coaches who helped them refine and advance their projects.
As part of the four-day event, five young people were selected to pitch their ideas for advancing financial equity to a panel of judges for a chance to win the additional $10,000 in funding for their initiative. Pitch-off judges included Lowrey, leaders from Ashoka and the Financial Health Network, and two program alumni.
The panel was intended to select one Grand Prize finalist from the five who pitched their projects. However, after hearing the pitches, the judges decided to award $10,000 to each of the five presenters, in recognition of the societal impact of their initiatives. In addition to the grand prize winners, Prudential employees voted this spring to name an Employees’ Choice Award winner, who received an additional $5,000.