About Vanessa
Money has been my world for more than 25 years. People have always been the interesting part.
I'm Vanessa Stoykov, author, journalist, speaker, media entrepreneur and founder of evolution media group.
For more than 25 years, I've worked alongside some of the world's leading financial experts, investment organisations and business leaders. I've interviewed thousands of people about money, created and hosted television programs, written books, spoken on stages across Australia and internationally, and built a media business dedicated to making financial ideas more engaging and human.
And after all those years talking about money, I've learned something important.
Money is rarely just about money.
It's about relationships. Family. Freedom. Security. Ageing. Starting again. Helping our children. Caring for our parents. Building a future. And sometimes simply wanting to know that we're going to be okay.
The conversation before the decision
Most people don't need more financial information. There's more of it available than ever before.
What we often need is help having the right conversation.
Our biggest money decisions tend to arrive at pivotal moments in life: marriage, divorce, having children, inheritance, a career change, buying property, retirement or caring for ageing parents. I call these Financial Flashpoints: the moments when life changes and the decisions we make about money can shape what comes next.
They bring emotion, history, expectations and sometimes fear. Before we can make a decision, we need to understand what we really want, what's at stake and what our choices could mean for the life ahead.
That's where my work lives: in the conversation before the decision.
Turning complex ideas into human stories
Storytelling has been at the heart of my career.
Through television, books, journalism, speaking and media, I've spent decades translating complex financial ideas into stories people can understand and relate to.
I'm the author of The Five Conversations About Money That Will Radically Change Your Life and The Breakfast Club for 40-Somethings, and I write a weekly global column for the Daily Mail, responding to real-life money dilemmas involving relationships, families and major life decisions.
As a speaker, I work with organisations, leaders, employees, financial professionals and communities to make conversations about money more open, useful and human.
I also work with leaders and trusted professionals on storytelling, helping them communicate complex ideas in ways that build trust and move people to action.
What I believe
After thousands of conversations about money, business and life, one idea continues to sit at the centre of everything I do:
“Better conversations lead to better decisions.”
We won't make every decision perfectly. Life changes. Relationships change. Careers change. Families change. Our priorities change.
But when we're willing to ask better questions, talk more openly and understand what really matters to us, we give ourselves a much better chance of making decisions we'll feel good about for years to come.
Because ultimately, money isn't the destination.
It's one of the tools we use to build the life we want to live.
Money Is Complicated.
Let's Make It Clearer.
Get Vanessa's Newsletter
Courageous conversations about money, straight to your inbox.
High school is long behind us, but the beliefs we learned about money and success can still shape our choices.
Told through six distinctive characters, The Breakfast Club for 40-Somethings is an entertaining novel about the money lessons we inherit, the ones we need to unlearn and how our choices can shape the future. A fresh, story-led alternative to traditional finance and self-help books.
